20 Pounds

I guess I'll write it out since it makes it all the more real. Not that a summer spent in stretchy pants doesn't make it pretty freaking real. Jeans that feel like they are cutting off circulation; real. Shoot, my own skin feels tight on my body. Reality.

I know how I gained it. Same way I lost it, just the opposite. I lost sight of caring, really. Food was more important. Dear God, I HATE this. I'm so tired of it. The struggle. Being thinner really is better than the food I've eaten to put on weight. I know it is. I remember how it felt. How good it felt to put clothes on and have them be loose. Everything felt good.

I knew the struggle would come back. Bit by bit, slice by slice, day by day. It's always there, like a crack-addict. It was easier to quit smoking, I tell you. Easier! I haven't smoked in over a decade. Don't really miss it, either. But then I don't have to smoke five cigarettes a day, no less no more. I have to eat.

I also have to buy food. I have to balance checkbooks. I have to make dinners, keep schedules, earn money, clean house, fix broken things, wash my hair, bathe my dog... sometimes - MOST times - it is just flat out easier to not care what I'm eating. Hard enough to make meals that are nutritious, delicious and cost efficious (not a word, but it's a rhyme-ier way of saying "efficient" so let it go)!

Here I go grumbling again.

I feel like a broken record. Like an addict that keeps falling off the wagon, over and over and over.

Maybe I needed to gain this weight to appreciate what I had. Not that I didn't appreciate it. I did. Oh how I did. Shopping for clothes at the thrift store. Fitting into them so much better.

I have to remember what I liked, what felt good, how good it felt... or I'm going to continue heading down the path of self-destruction.

I was less self-conscious.
My clothes felt great.
I felt great.
I had more energy.
I didn't worry about where I sat.
I was more comfortable.

This was just 20 pounds. Twenty. Simple. Pounds. Right now I am the opposite of all of those things. Even though I'm not nearly as heavy as I was at my highest weight, I've been on the other side of 270 and it felt happier there. I was closer to 250 than 300. I liked it.

I want to go back.