291 - Contemplating the Ups and Downs

I saw this and it hit home. Made sense.

PRIORFATGIRL:

One moment, I’m holding my head high, confident that healthiness is about how I feel. Healthiness is about balance, about life. Healthiness is about how I feel, not what I weigh.

And then, the next moment, I find myself struggling to embrace who I am in my own body. Struggling to love myself for who I am, not the weight I gained.

What is healthy living and living healthy?

When you’re up, you’re up and when you’re down, you’re down.

When you’re up, you feel like you have figured it out.

When you’re down, you feel like you’ll never get there.

When you’re up, you make eye contact and stand proud.

When you’re down, you compare and retreat.

What is an up without a down.

 Very true. Right now, today, this moment, I'm on an UP. I feel good, I'm motivated. I'm tired of how my clothes feel. I've had 3 good days of eating and tracking. My weigh-in says I've lost 2 pounds. Great. Good. Love it.

One thing I know though, is that no matter if I'm UP or DOWN, I'm thinking about food. My life revolves around it. Does that ever change? If you're an emotional eater, does life ever stop revolving around your (addiction to) food? Right now I have some simple go-to foods that I've eating on a rotating basis, basically just to keep my calories where I want them. Even though they aren't special or spectacular, I'm still finding I'm thinking about the food. Not obsessively, but probably more than I should. I'm forced to think because I'm tracking it, too.

As I read the above blog, though, I had a two-sided reaction.


My first reaction was ahead hanging knowledge of the roller coaster, the ups and downs and in betweens. How when you're UP you can't imagine being anything but, and when you're DOWN you so badly want the magic, the feeling of being UP. I don't know what it is that triggers those times when I'm motivated and all is going well, and what is missing when I'm not.

Find that, and I bet you've got the golden ticket for a LOT of fat people. How many people have you seen lose weight, perform complete transformations on their body, only to gain it back again. How can you go from 400 pounds to 190 and then back to 400+ pounds? I mean, it's slow. It happens, you have to notice, right?

Seems almost akin to fighting a cancer that just wants to be in your body. If your body just wants to get fat again, it will trick your every being into getting there. It will cut you at the soul, remove resistance, and push you back where you were. No matter the humiliation, no matter the tears, no matter how bad you want it - it WILL get you there (see WLS patients who have gone back to their HW and then some... what gives?).

My second reaction was the realization that I can have joy at 294 pounds. I truly can. Maybe I can't have the activities and the body in clothes that other people have, but I can have joy. I've found ways to be happy that come from other sources besides my physical being. That is truly important. Disconnecting the failure and success of my life and its joy source to the state of my body. Praise God for that. People with less mobility than myself are happy. Truly happy. People larger than myself are happy -- just as happy as the 105 pound marathon-running triathlete. Some even more so.

There are people that would look at my fat, happy newlywed friends and think, if only they were healthier and thinner. But if they shut off their own inner stigma, they might notice they ARE HAPPY, and having the TIME OF THEIR LIFE.

In no way am I disputing that having a smaller body can't or won't increase my joy base. I'm sure it would. But I'm also encouraged by people who find joy no matter their circumstance. Love the body you are in, accepting it.

My personal comfort in my body isn't where I'd like it to be right now. I'm at about 60% capacity. I think, with some weight loss, I could be at 80%, and that would bring me 20% more joy.

Re-Starting

I truly hate to even be here.

OK, that's not true. I'm happy to still be here. I'd have hoped to be closer to 200 pounds than I am right now, though. Now... I'm back at square one again.

293 pounds today, says my Wii fit.

I've left my trackers where they were. I look at them and realize that was back in 2010. That wasn't last fall, las summer or winter, that was TWO years ago. I can't hang on to those goals as if they were yesterday.

I'm starting anew. Re-Starting instead of pretending that I've just recently fallen off. When I look at 2010 and see that I was 269 (30 pounds less than I am now), I wish I would have stuck with it. Had I, I would probably be closer to 200 pounds. 20 pounds a year is doable. Even 10 pounds a year would put me at 249. How wonderful would that have been! I can't imagine. 269 was a treat. The clothes I could wear, the way I felt in my skin. It is good to remember that.


Moving forward, though, I need to take a deep breath, stay on the course. Remind myself that steady is OK. 


What I am pleased with is that I didn't hit 300. I didn't go back to where I was. I'm getting close, if I don't change, though. I'm skirting the issue and need to face it head on, even though I know it will sting.


Over the last two years I've gotten a CPAP machine. Maybe I'd need one at 250, but maybe not. 
I don't want one. 
I hate it.
It doesn't give me good results, either. If it did, I might love it.


I've had elevated glucose readings.
I need to go back and get it rechecked. 
I've been dodging that.


I'm uncomfortable.


I'm avoiding activities (people, places, things) because of my fatness.


IT IS INHIBITING MY LIFE


If it were anyone else I'd tell them to CHANGE IT. Change what is holding you back during this short time on earth and shoot for your goals. Make a mark. Bless people. It is hard to do any of those things when you are holding back, hiding from the world because you are uncomfortable in your own skin.

I am fortunate that I don't have any more severe issues at this point in my life. But I have a few that could easily be combatted by some work on my end. I've been given a break - so far - and blessed with a spot of motivation. I need to prove to myself, my family, and my God that I can live out my own words.

Living out my own faith. Discipline. It is not easy. I enjoy food. But there's so much else to enjoy in life that I'm missing and giving up for food. That isn't right.