I never understood people who gained back weight they’ve lost
Until now. Now I get it.
This is a long post with a lot of personal problems written so I’m going to put it after a break. But if you do decide to read it, please read it all the way to the end. The end is the most important part.
When you are overweight you associate most of your unhappiness with the fat. If you can just get rid of that fat and be healthy and look attractive all of your problems will be solved. You’ll meet that boy or girl who sweeps you off your feet, you’ll be able to eat more things you like because maintaining is easier than losing, you’ll be more attractive because finding cute clothes that fit will be easy. Life will just be easier.
So you work hard and you stay disciplined. The weight can either come off easy or it can be a struggle but eventually you’re making progress either way. People start giving you all the compliments you want to hear. “You look so amazing!” or “You’re so athletic!” You notice more attention from the opposite sex. You buy nice clothes and have fun doing it for the first time in a long time. Life is turning into something awesome just like you hoped!
But then the weight stops coming off. Maybe you are at your goal, maybe you aren’t, but all of a sudden what you’ve been striving for for the past few months or even years just comes to a screeching halt. And this can either make or break a person.
The human condition is always to strive for something better. As a kid you want to grow up. As a grown up you want to save, travel, expand, grow. It is instinctual, you just can’t help but want more. So you’ve reached your goal, now what? You start having the time to really look around and you realized that those problems that were there when you were fat are actually still there. You may be getting more attention from the opposite sex, but you still haven’t been swept off your feet. You are too afraid to start eating more because you know how hard you’ve worked and you don’t want to ruin that. You may be more attractive but you’ve possibly alienated yourself from some of your friends by creating and carrying out different priorities for the past few months…. and now, as you sit still, the funk sets in.
Your expectations from weight loss wasn’t met. You’re still alone or you’re not the social butterfly you had wanted. Maybe your body didn’t turn out the way you thought it would in your mind. Now there are stretch marks on loose skin that jiggles about you in a way that fat never did. Your boobs sag a little, the skin on your hips hang. Nothing is quite the way you imagined it and the funk seeps in deeper. The sports you started engaging in to get in shape are starting to lose their appeal or have gotten too easy. You start eating more and exercising less. Maybe you think you deserve it, maybe its simply because you’re sad. But then the weight comes on and you don’t even care because after losing so much, what is a few extra pounds? Then a few turns into thirty and people have stopped complimenting you. The clothes stop fitting right. You can’t tell people with pride anymore about how you changed your life and lost X amount of pounds.
I understand that now because in many ways I’m staring it in the face. And I’m scared.
I look banging in a dress and I get more male attention than ever in my life, but I’m still as single as I have been for the past 10 years. These last 15-20 pounds are just not coming off. It is a struggle to lose 1 or 2 pounds and when I slip up they so easily come back. I can find clothes with ease now so I’m not as concerned as I was at 220lbs about losing weight. The worst part of all for me though is my breasts. My boobs sag as they have lost almost a cup and a half of size. They are like deflated balloons and looking at them naked in the mirror makes me want to cry. My friends say they don’t look that bad, just different, but I know my body and I know how gloriously large and plump they were at my highest weight. It was one thing about my body I liked and now they are gone.
So here I am. I am at that point of disappointment where I start to wonder if all this is worth it. I am writing up the pros and cons, what is better and what isn’t and weighing it all in my mind. I’ve cried about it, I’ve eaten every single emotion. I’ve made myself sick. Those first couple pounds of “I don’t care” have found it’s way onto my hips. I stand right on the precipice of getting my shit together or letting it all fall apart, and I am teetering. I could just delete this blog, unfollow people on twitter, delete my fitocracy account and fall into the black oblivion and pretend like none of this ever happened. No one would even know how to find me.
But after thinking it all through, I have decided to turn my face towards the Sun. Times are hard now, but 90% of that is in my mind. My boobs sag? So what, I’ll buy new ones. I’m still single? Oh well, I still have a two dozen more people in my life who love me. The fat isn’t coming off anymore? I’ll fucking make it come off.
I refuse to let my disappointment ruin my hard work. These past couple weeks I’ve been mourning. Mourning the loss of the safety of who I was. Wallowing in my disappointment. But the mourning period is over. This is my life, this is my health. I am in control of this show. Not my feelings. My feelings are a product of my thoughts and actions and I chose to change them. I am not going to give up. The old me gave up. The old me let her emotions run the show. And who was the old me? She was insecure, unhappy and destructive. Why the fuck would I let her take back the control?
I am in control. The mourning is done. Striving for more doesn’t ever end, it evolves. This is where I make a change. This is my evolution.
