I must admit, I am not 100% certain how to tackle this blog. I love a good snark, even at my own expense, but my weight has always been a touchy subject.
When I was little, I was about as skinny as a kid could get. My parents used to tell the story of how I was the only kid they ever knew who could take three bites of an M&M and still have some left over. They used to find little pieces of M&M around the house. Also, they knew that if I walked away from food that I was done with it. I still do not much care for leftovers, but at the same time I never walk away from a cookie.
I don’t know exactly when the change happened. I know that up until I was about twelve years old kids teased me that my dad was a light bulb (because of my big forehead) and my mom was a giraffe (because of my tall, gangly appearance). There was a group of girls who stood on the playground every morning waiting for me to get off the bus so that they could chant “Roses are red/ Bats are black/ Why is your front side/ As flat as your back?” Cute, no?
Then, one dark and stormy night, I got boobs. It really seemed to happen just like that. One day I was being teased for being flat chested and the next I was being accused of stuffing my bra (on the very first day that I wore one). From the age of about 12 ½ to 13 I went from an A cup to a C cup, all the time being accused of adding ever more tissue to my blossoming busts. In fact, this went on until I went to a trip to Washington DC when I was 13 with my class. As we were all meeting in the hallway to go to the pool, I walked out of my room and a boy (yes Dominic, I remember you) yelled, “Oh my God, they’re real!” Sigh. The joys of youth. By the time I started High School a few months later I was already past a D, at which point I kind of stopped keeping track.
I started to chunk up in the 9th Grade. I wouldn’t say that I was fat, but as my boobs grew, so did my waistline. My entire body became uncoordinated and unwieldy. I still have problems with running into things because my brain thinks I am much smaller than I actually am. I had huge self-confidence problems, and I know that I became a very big consumer of junk food. I had a little hiding place in the basement of our house (my dad’s dusty old accordion case) where I kept a stash of candy hidden from the eyes of my four siblings. I babysat on a regular basis and used that money to indulge myself. A pint of Häagen-Dazs here, a couple candy bars there. I had a regular babysitting gig on Friday nights and I would stop at the Greenwood Bakery (which, by the way, I still maintain has the best pastries in Phinney Ridge), and I would buy myself a couple éclairs or other pastries. When the kids went to bed, I would sit by myself in front of the television eating my treats, never once giving a second thought to the calories I was consuming. I found a lot of what I considered to be happiness in those indulgences.
By the time I was 16 I had grown to 183 pounds (at 5’ 8” I was about a size 16). At some point I made a change and lost more than 20 pounds. Unfortunately for me, as my waistline shrank, my boobs stayed put. At the age of 17 my parents got me a breast reduction, one of the best choices I think I have ever made. My doctor removed 2/3 of my chest (deemed medically necessary by my insurance because of their size) and left me at a very large C cup. I remember standing in the shower shortly after the surgery and being astonished that I could look down and see my feet. I put on some weight after that, but managed to lose it again by the time I was about 19 or so, getting down to about 145 pounds and a size 7.
After I had my daughter at the age of 22, my body bounced right back to a size 7/8, but within just a few months I blew up again. By the time I was married 10 months later, I was back up to about 180 and a size 16. We moved to Monterrey, CA a couple of weeks later, and by November of that year I was up to at least 220 pounds. I say at least because when I started working out with my neighbor I did not weigh myself for several weeks and when I did I was at about 220. I will never know exactly what my highest weight was. I worked out for several hours a day diligently for a couple of months, getting down below 170 before we moved back to Seattle. I got a job, went back to work and stopped working out. I put on more weight, probably getting up to about 185/190. Then I started Weight Watchers online program, and dropped down to about 154 pounds. I was referred to at work as the Incredible Disappearing Woman.
I was able to maintain that for a while until I got a “promotion” which was so incredibly stressful that I put on 15 pounds over about the next 6 months, culminating in a separation from the company that I truly thought that I would work for forever. I had been so miserable in the job, and so poorly treated by my new, slime ball boss, that even with leaving I was unable to bring myself out of my depression. I got another job very quickly, for someone else I soon discovered was also a slime ball. When my husband announced 6 months after starting my new job that he was taking a contract in Afghanistan, I took it as an opportunity to get out of the insurance industry and stayed home with my daughter.
I hovered right around 185 pounds (which at my height of 5’ 9” was a size 14) until I went onto the anti-depressant Paxil. I didn’t take it for very long, but I put on 20 pounds almost immediately. I had knee surgery and was working out several days a week for a couple of hours at a time, and I could not lose the weight. So there it stands. With the brief exception of dropping back down to 185 a year ago when I started a new anti-depressant which quelled my hunger for a while, I have hovered at or right around 200 pounds.
And that is where we find me today. 205 pounds miserable.
I am completely certain that my weight is my own fault and 100% my own responsibility, but I have lacked the ability to care about it. Or at least, I didn’t care enough to cut my calories and get my rump off the sofa. I have hated my weight and my appearance for years, but I have never stuck with anything that I have started. Most of the time I couldn’t even find the motivation to start.
For some reason, something clicked in my head yesterday. I don’t know what it was, or why it happened. A friend of mine posted something on facebook about something she was doing, and she gave me a link to it when I asked for it. I started entering in my food and calories and in my head I thought, “I can do this.” Why can I do this now? I don’t know. But I want to be thinner, I want to be healthier and I want to be happier. I don’t want the disapproving looks from my doctor, I don’t want to have to stand on a scale and turn my head away while a nurse quietly writes down my weight. I don’t want to shop in the big girl section anymore.
So this is it. D-Day. Ground Zero. Or something. I am starting small and documenting journey in hopes that I might one day be an inspiration to some other Chunky Monkey out there trying to figure out just how this whole thing works. Mmmmmmmm… Chunky Monkey… Damn you Ben and Jerry’s!
F. Bear Slippers
F. Bear Slippers
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