A Taste Of “Normal”

As promised, I thought I’d tell you about the “successful” weight loss experience I had a few years ago and the unexpected effects that it had on me. (*Warning: This post is long, I'm sorry, it’s just a lot to explain.*) Although I have always been on the chubby side, I packed on considerable weight the first year of college. I never weighed myself but I estimate that I must have been flirting with the 200 pounds mark. I was miserable, none of my clothing fit and it made me feel very insecure with my appearance. I was always trying out different diets but never with more than 15 pound successes and then I would quickly gain the weight back. I began to think that no matter how much I disliked being fat maybe it was my fate to be that way. Maybe it was just a nuisance, to be tolerated and unhappy about, but a fact of life. All of my life I considered myself a fat girl and my weight bothered me badly but at that point I began to think that I could never be anything else but heavy. I felt confident in every area of my life except my appearance and I figured whatever I lacked in visual appeal, I made up in substance of person. I knew that people (and the opposite sex) thought badly about being fat but I didn’t think that it applied to me. I thought that there was more to me than the fat and that people saw past that. It’s like I knew that I was fat, I disliked being fat, but it wasn’t all that I thought about. It wasn’t what I obsessed over, cried over, and worried over; sometimes I would even “forget” that I was fat. I figured most people ignored it once they got to know me and that my weight just kind of “disappeared”. Then I went on the Atkins diet and I lost 17 pounds in two weeks right off the bat. I was shocked to say the least. At the time I was working 46 plus hours a week and going to school full time. I hardly ate at all and when I did eat, not only was it very minimal in carbs but also it was low in calories (not recommended by Atkins). I lost weight very quickly; within eight months I went from 186 pounds (size 14/16 US) to 121 pounds (size 5 US). I know that this sounds strange but I didn’t realize how small I got. It seems impossible but the best way that I can explain it is that I lost the weight but did absolutely nothing mentally to adjust to it. I isolated myself during that time, obsessing over numbers, carbs, two jobs, bills and school. I was running on five hours of sleep or less and was just mentally cut off from myself. I felt like a zombie at the time, going through the motions without any kind of thought about who I was, what my goals were, or what I wanted to do. I wore my clothes until they were too baggy to stay on and then I would buy a few clothes in a couple of sizes lower. This led to me never really knowing what my body looked like because it was constantly covered up in way too big jeans and shirts. I distinctly remember a time when my clothes got so big I knew I had to go shopping. I picked up a pair of pants in size 11, found that they were too big in the dressing room and then grabbed lower and lower sizes until I finally had something on that fit me. The fact that I started off with an 11 shows just how out of touch with my own body I was. I remember another time when shopping for jeans and I saw the size five number. I assumed that it must be that the brand had weird sizes. I never thought that it was because I was actually that small. Something that I never anticipated was the reaction from other people. People meant well, I know that they did but I didn’t know how to take a compliment because it just reminded me of what was wrong with me before and I didn’t know what to do when people said something well-intended but hurtful. I just had no idea how to handle either situation. (Trust me, I wish that this were the situation I was dealing with now! I wish that learning how to say thank you when someone says something about how thin I look was my biggest problem. Instead, my problem is saddlebag thighs!) My immediate family was very supportive and happy for me; I really felt that my weight loss was a non-issue with them. It was more the reactions of co-workers, acquaintances, and well-meaning individuals that I found to be confusing. I often felt like people said things to me that had a very “thank goodness you’re not fat anymore” relieved sound to them. I worked in a center with many young people my own age. Once I lost weight, they talked to me differently and treated me differently. A few of the guys even asked me out when they had never showed any interest in me before. Suddenly I was girlfriend material, I finally realized what it was like to turn the head of a man walking down the street. I had never known what that felt like before. I actually had a family acquaintance say to me, “Now that you’re thinner I think I can tell you this. I always thought you had a prettier face than your sister. Other people probably don’t say it but I’m sure there are others who are going to start thinking it also.” I know he intended this as a compliment but I felt offended by this. To me it seemed like an insult to my sister and a backhanded compliment to me. I had no idea that someone would even compare me to my sister. It all of a sudden occurred to me that I had been that old cliché term; I had been “the smart one”. I almost felt like people didn’t see a point in censoring themselves anymore. It was as if now that I was thin, they could talk about how heavy I was without it being painful to me. I got so many, “Oh, you look so good! You were so, you know (arms gesturing outwards)… and now you’re not! Good for you!” I even got “Wow, you were so big the last time I saw you and now you’re skinny!” I even got a few comments more honest, blunt or hurtful than this. You’d be surprised at the things people will say to you. I think what bothered me the most is the fact that I had been naïve to just how different people will treat you depending on your weight. I thought people who knew me saw past the weight only to find out that even good friends changed how they treated me. More than anything I felt embarrassed and vulnerable. It was easier to never know these things then to realize that all this time I had been blissfully unaware of what the world thought of me. I had changed my physical appearance but I had never changed how I dealt with stress, boredom, or other emotions. I ended up turning to food in these situations but was unable to go back on the diet after binges. My willpower and determination were just exhausted; I had spent so long on a crash diet way of eating that I was suffering from burnout. On top of all this, I realized that my body wasn’t going to look like the girls you see on TV or in magazines. I still had all the same problem areas; they were just smaller in circumference. I know now that my body will always carry the proof that I was overweight; there will always be cellulite and flabby body parts no matter how much diet and exercise I do. Yet at the time I had unrealistic expectations about what the end result would be and ended up unsatisfied and disappointed. I just did what I knew how to do best: I turned to food. It was familiar and comforting and it felt good to not restrict myself. It’s almost as if I got this weird idea that letting myself eat was a way to be nice to me and that sensible eating was something mean and restrictive. I knew chocolate cake and I knew mashed potatoes and I recognized that familiar, soothing feeling that comes with eating these things. My eating just got worse and worse, I gained all my weight back and I gained it back quickly. That’s how I’ve gotten to the point that I’m at now. I carry a lot of baggage from this experience. I think especially because now that I am heavy again, I wonder what people think of me. I never really used to think about this too much. My self-confidence isn’t only shaken in how I view my appearance but it has trickled into other areas of my life. I doubt myself much more than I ever did before. I sometimes feel like I don’t have anything to offer other people. I know that I was never this insecure before and if I did have doubts about myself, they were usually within reason. Now I sometimes wonder if there’s anything more to me other than fat. I swallowed the food but the fat has swallowed me. I want to find out that there’s an enjoyable, funny, loveable, deserving person with a personality underneath the Fat. That’s why this time I’m so obsessed with developing the inside as much as the outside. I want to make a permanent change and this time I want to enjoy it. Whew! Well, I know that was a lot; hope I didn’t bore you too much! If you’re still here, thanks for reading!