First, the WHEE intro:
WHEE (Weight, health, eating and exercise) is a community support diary for Kossacks who are currently or planning to start losing, gaining or maintaining their weight through diet and exercise or fitness. Any supportive comments, suggestions or positive distractions are appreciated. If you are working on your weight or fitness, please, join us!! You may also click the WHEE tag to view all diary posts.
Second, thanks for joining me on this eve, and I wish you all the happiest of holiday seasons.
When you face the daunting task of losing weight, sometimes the toughest task can be to not lose your self esteem. I mean, let's be honest here, typically, you don't feel so great about yourself to start with. Then, enter the well-meaning but clumsy statements like "you have such a pretty face, but...." or "you'd be a handsome man, if..." Then, there are those who enjoy lecturing you that if you just ate right and exercised, all would be fine, making you feel weak and inferior in the will department also. It can be a chore not to run to comfort food for assistance as a reaction to all the "help" you're getting. For my journey, one of the most arduous tasks was learning not to see myself as reflected in the opinion of others.
I had always been about average in weight, until I developed a health condition at age 40. In fact, my then husband preferred his women a bit heavier and would complain that sleeping with me was like lying next to a starving dog. Hmmm, hardly inspiration for watching my weight. With the onset of a health issue, my activity level dropped, my metabolism changed, and I began gaining weight. Add to that the depression ensuing from chronic pain, numerous medications with side effects, and a failing long term marriage, it seemed that fighting the weight too required more energy than I could muster. The heavier I became, the worse the depression grew and I entered a nasty downward cycle.
I would walk by mirrors and gaze in, wondering who that woman was; she didn't look like me. I became uncomfortable going out in public. I was embarrassed. On my way to physical therapy one day, a construction worker gave me such a look of disdain and disgust, I felt like I had been physically slapped. Despite my emotional pain caused by my weight, I had no idea how to stop the weekly incremental increases reflected in the mirror and on the scale. I would get so repulsed with myself, I'd go without eating for several days in a row, and still gain a couple of pounds. Then I would become frustrated and eat because not eating felt futile.
When my weight crept above 325 pounds, I was utterly despondent. I felt helpless to stop the gain and spent a couple of weeks mired down in crying and self-hatred. It just so happened that at that time my marriage finally ended, for unrelated reasons. I began some serious introspection about what I wanted the rest of my life to be like. I knew I didn't want to feel helpless any longer, and that I was tired of ceding control of my life over to others. I wasn't sure how I had evolved into the position I was in, but I knew I wanted out of it.
For my first step towards retaking control, I made appointments with my physician and a therapist. The physician and I planned out a sensible diet program with a very heavy focus on fresh fruits and veggies. At the same time, the therapist worked with me to start building up some self esteem. I left post-it notes with positive messages around so that I would stumble across the encouraging notes at periods during my day. I put some distance between myself and the enabler and toxic personalities, and spent more time with a core of friends and family that were supportive, nonjudgmental, and nurturing. I registered at the local college and began taking a couple of classes I was interested in, to get me back out in the world again. And I began walking.
I was so overweight, just getting dressed left me short of breath, so long walks were out of the question. I began walking up and down on the sidewalk in front of my home. In time, I progressed to walking around the entire block. I began to add on a little excercise regime of leg lifts and thrusts. It was about this point that I realized I was weighing myself all the time and, frankly, it was just depressing me, so I threw out my scales. The only times I have been weighed since that day was at physician appointments. I decided to focus on how I felt rather than the numbers on that stupid scale. For me, it was liberating; it was one more step toward listening to myself rather than just reflecting negative input from outside myself. It also helped me to keep the focus on feeling healthy, rather than on feeling that I was failing to conform to a set of numbers that were approved by others.
When I drove to class, I would park a few blocks away, so I had to walk the extra distance to and from campus. I began taking the stairs instead of the elevator. In general, I stuck to the healthy diet my doctor and I had worked out, though once in a while I allowed myself a small treat. I played all the tricks of never finishing what was on my plate (something that was forbidden when I was a child,) and not eating after 6:00 p.m. The only thing I drank was water, and boy, did I drink a LOT of water. To this day, I rarely drink any other beverage and I never "clean my plate."
After a few months of this, I felt good enough to enroll in an exercise class at the local community college. Newly divorced and on disability, I couldn't really afford a gym, so this solved my needs nicely. For the next two years, I took a circuit training class three nights a week, was allowed use of the gym when classes weren't in session, and only paid about $25 per semester for it. Not a bad deal at all. Oddly, I got so immersed in "doing my program," I didn't pay much attention to the results. One night in class that second year, a young woman asked why I was in circuit training, since it obviously wasn't to lose weight. I was stunned, as I still saw myself as obese. It took about an hour or so to filter it through my head that, hey, I was down to a size 4! After that, I went back to horseback riding, a passion from my youth, which happens to give a good workout also.
Over time, with my therapist's help, I began to realize how much other people's opinions and desires had taken over my life. I became determined never to abdicate my will, my life, to others again. The little comments and events that I had not thought much of consciously, but that I had reacted to, I learned to ignore. Things really did become, for the first time in my life, about me. I realized that all my efforts to please everyone else meant nothing if I wasn't happy with myself. And no, it wasn't just about the weight, but about my entire mindset, and the weight was just one more symptom of it.
Over about an 18 month period, I went from 328 pounds down to 117 pounds. At 5'8, I'm the first to admit that I got carried away and lost too much. You see, for a very long time, when I looked in the mirror, I still saw that fat woman I was determined to get away from. My doctor was seriously displeased and put me on Ensure for a few weeks. She was delighted when I went up to 135 pounds. I've maintained that weight pretty consistently over the last decade, although I did gain about 15 pounds after breaking my back in 2007. Once I was able to start walking again, it came off though.
Those of us who struggle with weight have different reasons and causes for why we are where we are. Sometimes, it is not as easy as one would think to figure that out. There is no quick and easy, nor uniform solution, unfortunately. I know, everyone has advice and "if you'd just follow it....," blah, blah. Ultimately, we are each individuals and our problems and solutions are just as individual as we are. It's a matter of finding what works for you, not what someone else's solution was. For me, personally, the realization of this was a key to changing my life and, in the process, losing weight. It wasn't a diet, it was a journey of self-discovery that impacted every aspect of my life.
Most importantly, no matter how you got here, no matter what you weigh, embrace yourself. Love yourself. Cherish yourself and your value. Hold your positive attributes close to your heart and let them support you while you work on those pesky negative things. After all, your weight is about you being healthy, not someone else's opinion of who you should be, but loving yourself and being around to share yourself with the world for a very long time to come.
Scheduled WHEE diaries:
December 25
Fri AM - ???
Fri PM - Runaway Rose ???
December 26
Sat AM - ???
Sat PM - Edward Spurlock (Kessler, Ch. 35)
December 27
Sunday AM - ???
Sunday PM - louisev
December 28
Monday AM - NC Dem
Monday PM - ???
December 29
Tues AM - ???
Tues PM - Clio2 (Kessler, Ch. 36)
December 30
Weds AM - ???
Weds PM - Edward Spurlock