How Fat Is FAT?

When I read other blogs I’m always curious as to what the person looks like. It’s as if you get to know so much about them that your brain wants some kind of mental picture to put to the person. I always admire anyone who can put their picture out there but I am chicken shit when it comes to doing this myself. I’m a very, very shy person. Like I said in my profile, I am a classic introvert. If you were to meet me in “real life” you would find that I’m very quiet, calm and don’t talk a lot. In fact, I rarely speak and instead love to listen. People often confide in me things because they know that I am very private, I never pry and I always listen without judgment. I’m always the person that other people come to when they have problems and when I have problems myself, I generally hold it inside and work it out quietly in my mind. This little blogging adventure is the most different thing that I have ever done. Some of the things that I have discussed with you all are things that I have never mentioned out loud to anybody. There are things that I intend to discuss with you that I still haven’t got the courage up to write about yet, not because they’re that serious or shocking but because it’s very out of character for me to talk about any of this stuff to anyone. Like I said, I want you guys to know what I look like but I haven’t gotten up the nerve. For one thing, no one knows that I have this blog. I have one of those site meter things and I see that there is one reader who actually lives in the same city as me. I doubt that this person knows me but the idea of somebody recognizing me absolutely strikes me with terror to no end. I figure until I get the nerve up to show you pictures of me, I should tell you a little about myself. So here goes… I am about five foot six and I don’t carry my weight well. A five pound gain on me shows like ten. My weight seems to concentrate in my ass, thighs, hips and legs. I would call this my biggest problem area. (Which makes me laugh that my “problem area” is about 60% of myself. That’s a really big area!) My stomach is not that bad, there are fat rolls on it but it actually is the thinnest part of my body. It’s also the first place I gain and lose weight, which can make finding a pair of pants that fit hell. My arms, chest and face are another place where my fat likes to collect and hang out. I have brown eyes and a lot of long, thick brown hair, which I lie to myself and believe helps to thin my face out and balance out my gigantic ass. When I started this blog, I weighed 178.9 pounds (that’s 81.32 for my metric friends) and at one time Weight Watchers told me I should aim for a goal weight of 123 (55.91). That means I need to lose about 56 pounds. I don’t have any exact measurements but currently I am wearing a size 14 US pants that are starting to finally become loose (I think I may have actually been closer to a 16 but I refused to buy new clothes) and a large (depending on style) to extra large shirt size. Maybe some of you are thinking, “Hey, that’s not that fat! Losing 56 pounds is totally doable!” So I have to tell you that it’s not about the numbers. My frame just can’t hold a lot of weight. I often look like the heaviest girl in the room, regardless of poundage, just because I have a very short, stubby appearance. I have no muscle tone, I get easily winded on stairs, and clothes shopping is a cruel form of self-torture for me. I have always been a fat girl. Even when I was young and I now realize that I wasn’t really fat, I thought of myself as a fat girl and that has always been a part of me. A few years ago I was able to lose a lot of weight and this experience only served to really complicate things for me. (I will write a separate entry about this soon) I quickly gained back all that weight and have actually been worse for the wear since this experience. I always hate when thin girls whine, “Oh, I’m so fat!” When they clearly are not. So I can understand if maybe some of you are thinking that I should quit my bitching. When I hear someone thin saying they need to lose ten pounds it feels like an insult to me. So I can understand if there is anybody out there who feels offended that I’m struggling at such a doable weight loss goal. Please understand that for me, the physical weight may be 56 pounds but the emotional weight feels like a ton. This time, I’m looking to lose it all.