Fat

I.  Am.  Fat. 

Ooh.....she said WHAT????

Yep.  Fat.  Been fat for a very long time.  I was a fat kid.  I was a fat teenager (until I stopped eating...that was a great decision).  I was a fat college student.  I was really fat around the time I graduated college and for a year or so afterward.  I topped out at 274 pounds.  No typo there...TWO hundred and seventy-four pounds.  The Hubby and I both realized we were very overweight (well, he was very overweight for his body and history) and started a little competition.  We worked together and lost a bit of weight.  We did the normal yo-yoing, but I got down to 235 for my wedding.  And then gained back 20.

After some time (about a year), I decided it was time to get serious.  I wanted a baby, after all.  So I started out on my own.  I lost a little under 30 on my own this time and got down to 228 when I started Weight Watchers in March 2008.  My weight when I got pregnant was 183, thanks to Weight Watchers (no, they are not paying me for this opinion) alone.  Whenever I would try working out, I would plateau or gain weight, no matter how much I adjusted what I was eating--more or less.  I believe in the program. 

During my pregnancy, though, I gained 50 pounds and when I delivered Baby Girl, I was approximately the same weight as I was when I got married.  I hated the way I looked when I got married, but at least now I had a baby bump. 

Everyone had told me about how easy weight loss would be while nursing, so I believed it.  I ate when I was hungry and spent my time focusing on my baby.  Apparently I was eating too much or that magical nursing weight loss just wasn't true for me.  Either way, 14 months after Baby Girl's birth, I hadn't lost more than 5 pounds from the day I came home from the hospital.  I tried to cut calories around this time and found that it cut more than that--it cut my milk supply.

Since then, I've been using my milk supply as an excuse.  It's a valid excuse, but an excuse nonetheless.  And worse yet, I've gained about 10 pounds over the winter.  I have a horrible sweet tooth and am frugal.  The Manager's Special bakery rack and cheap cake mixes were not my friend. 

I went to the doctor the other day and, although their scale has always read about 7 pounds above my home one, I weighed in there at 239.  Yuck.  Heavier than I was when Baby Girl was born.

So I need to do something.  But I still don't feel comfortable cutting calories.  That said, I'm an all-or-nothing type of girl.  If I'm going to cut some calories, I'm going to do it right--eating fruits and veggies, no cake or cookies in my house.  This is what lead to the anorexia in high school--I couldn't stop myself at just one piece of pizza.  I made a choice at that time--it was easier to stop eating almost all meals except dinner than to eat in moderation.

I, of course, regret this decision.  My husband looks at my high school pictures, where I thought I looked fabulous, and tells me I was too skinny.  If he were looking at anyone else, he would never say that, as I was a size 12 at that point.  But since he's only known the fat me, I *was* far skinnier than he's ever seen me.  And he knows how I got to that point, so he knows that I wasn't healthy skinny.

I think I let my weight go because I'm a perfectionist.  And when things feel out of control, I give up.  So when my weight goes spiraling from one splurge, I say "forget it" and binge.  I fight these tendencies every single day.  I'm like this in other aspects of my life as well--if anything gets overwhelming, I tend to remove myself from the situation rather than deal with it.  Again, this is something I'm working on.

I also have always had a lot of influence from my mother.  Growing up, I'm pretty sure she hovered around 300 pounds.  And I know she didn't want me to be like that, so she would criticize.  Not in a way that she could hear as mean, and not in a way that I necessarily *heard* as mean.  But I *felt* it as a criticism.  And when all you want in the world is to please everyone, it hurts.  And if you're trying and it's still not good enough, you give up after awhile.  So that's what I did.

Back to the present, though.  I've decided it's time.  I need to be healthier for Baby Girl.  I need to be able to go up a flight of stairs without getting winded.  I need to be able to feel comfortable in short sleeves.  I need my clothes (my fat clothes, now, since I got rid of all of my REALLY fat clothes), to fit.  I need to start to feel comfortable in my own skin.

Stay tuned for another post on what we're (The Hubby is on board, too) doing about it.