body image

Compliments and Doubts

Most days, someone tells me I look great. Usually, it is someone I haven’t seen in a week or two, sometimes longer. After many years of rarely being told this, it felt really good at first. Then it began to make me uncomfortable. My internal pendulum keeps swinging, from delight to chagrin at the number and level of compliments. Mostly, I try to acknowledge the compliment and move on to other topics, knowing that the compliment-givers are expressing care and support, wanting to celebrate my successes with me.

Lately, though, I have begun to think about this surplus of compliments and a new discomfort is surfacing: I wonder what I will feel when they stop coming?  Inevitably, I will come to the end of this seemingly endless weight loss marathon (hopefully by reaching my goals). I will stop looking different to those who haven’t seen me for a few weeks or months, my “new” self will become my “old” self.

How much have I come to enjoy these favorable comments on my physical appearance? How much have I been relying on them to feel good about myself and my slow progress? How much energy have I been focusing on my outward appearance? Too much? Am I more vain than I used to be?

Having spent most of my life being unhappy in my own skin, feeling dowdy or fat or just plain unattractive, I’ve taken refuge in thinking I’m above all that superficial stuff. “Looks don’t matter, its what’s inside that counts.” “I’d rather be smart than pretty.”  I might be fat, I’ve sometimes thought, but at least I’m not shallow. (No, never shallow!)

One day, not too long ago, I wore new clothes to work. I thought I looked pretty good, as I conducted that last quick check in the mirror on my way out the door. But no one commented on my new outfit, or how I looked in it. By 11 a.m., I was wondering if I was wrong. Maybe the new clothes weren’t as flattering as I thought. Perhaps they were in bad taste. Maybe I actually looked hideous, and people were kindly refraining from telling me so. I hurried to the restroom, the closest mirror that would show me more than whether lipstick had gotten on my teeth, to see. And there I was, looking the same as I had in the mirror at home. Was that good or bad?

As I’ve grappled with this concern – am I becoming more superficial and vain – I’ve come to a realization. Even though I went decades without feeling good about my own physical appearance, I was always focused on it to a degree. I live in and am part of a culture where this matters. We all do: Spanx, padded bra manufacturers, and Ulta stores are banking on that, for sure. Accepting that, the issue then becomes one of degree. To what degree will I allow my physical appearance, and the comments of others about it, to determine my sense of self-worth and satisfaction?

It feels good to feel good about how I look. I don’t need to look perfect, nor do I allow how I look on any given day to determine my agenda anymore – no more skipping things I want to do because I don’t want people to see me a certain way. (Maybe even if the event involves bathing suits.) And when it comes to compliments, I’ve been paying closer attention to my emotional response and I’ve discovered that my response mirrors the depth of the compliment. So, perhaps, my ego is taking things in stride, after all (as opposed to becoming a voracious compliment-hungry monster). I’ve also noticed that I am more likely now to compliment others on a wide range of things – from kindnesses I witness, to their successes, and yes, their appearance. Everyone appreciates being recognized and congratulated for things they’ve taken pains with.

The other day, a colleague came up to me in the dining room at work. She said, “I don’t know if I’ve had a chance to tell you this, but you look amazing…just so happy and so healthy! It is wonderful to see you like this.”  This particular comment really touched me, because happy and healthy are what I’ve been striving for and working so hard to achieve. Looking better, though also nice, is just a side benefit!

Acquired Tastes

The other night, I joined friends for Indian take-out. The selections included two kinds each of lamb and chicken curry, sag paneer, samosas and two flavors of naan. I had some of each curry over savory rice, plus a samosa and the garlic naan. A couple of the dishes were quite spicy, but the flavors were rich and layered. I loved all of it.

Later, as I drove home, I remembered the first time I tried Indian cuisine. I hated it. What were those pungent smells and earthy flavors? None of it tasted right, all of it was unfamiliar. These thoughts brought to mind other items I disliked at first blush, but grew to like (or in some cases love): country music, bald dudes, the smell of Quaker Oats. Below are a few other acquired tastes that may need a little explanation:

  • Bike shorts: All of my adult life I have joined friends in making fun of people who wear bike shorts. Especially if they are wearing matching jerseys (or, like the couple I saw on Saturday, BOTH wearing the same matching shorts/jerseys outfits). “Really?”, I’ve thought. “You need to wear a diaper in skin-tight spandex in order to ride a bike?”  With the purchase of my first pair of biking shorts this summer, I have had to take it all back. I may still be less than comfortable with the skin-tight spandex, but I am loving the diaper part. Comfortable doesn’t begin to describe it – those shorts have literally saved my butt.
  • Squats and lunges: A number of years ago, when I still weighed close to 350 pounds, my friend Ryan designed a workout routine for me. He included lots of these moves, and I told him I couldn’t do them. He said I could. We went round and round on it, but the truth is, I nearly fell over when I tried a lunge and I thought I looked like a weirdo when I attempted a squat. I gave them one chance, and refused to consider them again. Once I joined Sisters’ Gym, the fitness classes almost always included squats and lunges. I did them as gingerly as possible, and complained frequently about how they hurt my knees. However, this summer I have turned a corner – all the bike riding has strengthened my knees, increased my physical confidence, and allowed me to see that squats and lunges just add to my body’s strength. I don’t wait until my trainer’s back is turned to fudge on them anymore.
  • Top 40 Radio: To be fair, this is a re-acquired taste. I loved it as a teen. I despised it throughout my 40s. Last year, I was exposed to it while riding in a van with Mike and his teenaged sons. I had to listen, because the volume was cranked. I distinctly remember hearing “Magic” by B.O.B. and thinking, “Wow, I’ve never heard this before, but I can already sing along!” When it came time to update the workout songs on my iPod, I turned to the ever-popular popular music for songs which might be inane (Brittney or Ke$ha) but have a good beat (Flo Rida or Usher).
  • Power bars and sports drinks: Back in the days when I was always looking for the most delectable snackfoods, I thought these were terrible. The bars were sticky and tasted like sawdust, while the beverages were sweet with a strange aftertaste. Also, when you never break a sweat, they seem dumb. Now I know better. Early morning physical activity benefits from food intake, but I just can’t do breakfast sometimes. And long bike rides during severe heat advisories are just safer when electrolytes are replenished. I have come to appreciate (yes, even like) these items. 
  • Movement: There was a point in my life when I avoided things that required extra movement, or really any movement. My mother often commented on my strange talent for finding a way to complete household chores while seated. Sometimes, I was actually jealous of the people on motorized chairs in the grocery store – why did they get to ride while I walked? When friends needed help moving or completing work projects in their homes, I usually volunteered to bring food rather than engage in the labor. Now, some days I feel lazy. But most days, I need to fit in some kind of physical activity, even if the day is a long one, in order to feel truly well. It turns out, I like moving. A lot.

I didn’t include any people on my list. However, experience has taught me that first impressions should not be allowed to determine the course of relationships. I have a number of treasured friends whose personalities or styles were an acquired taste for me – and I am certain that the same is true for them with regard to me. I know all about the research on first impressions, their tenacity and the lightening speed with which they are made. But I also know that first impressions can strike deceptively far from the truth. The important thing, whether I’m talking people or curry, is to keep an open mind. Like most important life lessons I’ve learned, this one bears repeating. Luckily, the opportunities for having it reinforced are many!

A RAGBRAI Story – Part 1

A Saturday afternoon, July or August, 1978, Loveland, Ohio (just outside Cincinnati). Flipping through the television channels, my father and I start watching a documentary. It is about a bike ride across the state of Iowa – our home state, which we still love. More of the family wanders in while we watch, and by the end of the show at least my Dad and I are convinced: RAGBRAI (The Register’s Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa) is the coolest thing ever. We SO want to do it (never mind the small fact that neither of us rides our bikes voluntarily.)

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8:15 a.m. Friday morning, July 29, 2011. My friend and training partner, Sarah, and I crested a hill on Highway 6, outside of Grinnell, Iowa. Morning fog was just burning off the cornfields covering the rolling hills which spread off in every direction. We looked at each other, grinning, but also misty-eyed. A brightly colored river of people on bicycles, its current weaving and undulating, was visible for miles ahead on the pavement that lay before us. We were finally riding on RAGBRAI!

For every rider on RAGBRAI, there are two narratives: one that is purely individual and another which is all about community. The individual narrative is about the motivation, preparation, and determination required to successfully complete what can be a physically grueling test of endurance (even for someone, like me, only riding one 75 mile day of the week-long event). In all of my training rides, every mile I rode leading up to that morning’s start in Grinnell, I thought that this individual story was the story. I was completely inside my own head.  Had I progressed far enough away from the 350+ pound sedentary couch potato I once was to successfully complete this challenge? At 50? For me, this individual story is an important one – but it pales by comparison to the other narrative – the one about community that took me by surprise and brought me to tears numerous times throughout the day.

The second story began at 5:16 a.m. when I was standing in my driveway, in my bike shorts and Mustang jersey, trying not to freak out because my ride and the other bicyclist embarking with us, weren’t there yet. Then I heard a honking horn and my friends, Layne and Kristen, shouting “Yeah, Mustangs! RAGBRAI here we come! Woo Hoo!” Did my neighbors appreciate this serenade? Doubtful. But it brought a smile to my face. We loaded my stuff, and my friend Tricia’s, into the back of the borrowed pickup truck, then rendezvoused with the two other trucks loaded with our team and their bikes.

Once we arrived in Grinnell via gravel roads (the main access to town was blocked due to RAGBRAI), it was time to wipe off the road dust, pump up the tires, and meet the rest of “Team Mustang” at the park in town. Before leaving the park, our “road crew” got out the sharpie markers and wrote on our legs, telling the other 10,000 riders that I was celebration turning 50. Talk about a birthday celebration – nothing like having hundreds of birthday wishes shouted to you by passing strangers! Anyway, at 8:02, it was time to mount up and take off. We rode through town to the cheers and well-wishes of Grinnell’s citizens.

There are so many details of that day etched in my mind. I would love to share them all, but in the interest of time, I will share those which most illuminate the story about community. My friends Colette, Wendy and Tricia chose to participate on the ride primarily to join me in the celebration of my birthday. They, too, have their own individual narratives about the ride, but I know that they chose to put themselves through the experience in support of me. Sarah spent countless hours with me, the slow-but- slowly-improving rider, leading up to the day. While we were separated on the road, it helped to know that, somewhere in that sea of polyester and spandex, were people who love me.

We met up with our support team again in Marengo (the halfway point) for lunch and some much needed companionship – not to mention rest. I was daunted by the morning’s ride. Not ready in any way to give up, but very unsure if I had the reserves to finish the day. Truthfully, after the initial happiness of seeing the group together again, we were all a bit sober – having discovered that the day would be harder than we anticipated. But the hour we spent, eating and laughing on a stranger’s front lawn, reminded us that we were in it together, no matter how alone we necessarily were in pedaling our bikes. We left Marengo in a pack of matching blue and gold jerseys, to the cries of “Go Mustangs” from passing cyclists.

After lunch, I lost Tricia, who had been my riding partner most of the morning. I rode the entire first leg of the afternoon on my own. The road from Marengo to Homestead, Amanas, was a long, flat one. It wound through a valley so beautiful that I could not believe my good fortune – no hills AND the best of Iowa to look at! My spirits lifted, and I was so overcome by gratitude, I pulled out my phone and called my parents in New Mexico just to tell them how amazing it was. I wanted my Dad to know that we were right, back in 1978 – RAGBRAI is the coolest thing ever!

Heading into Homestead was a long hill, but I could hardly complain after the miles of flat terrain just completed. I shifted into low gear and took as long as I needed to crest the hill. Just as I did, my phone rang – my friends were in Homestead and waiting for me in the beer tent!

In front of the concession tents were hundreds, maybe thousands, of bikes. Some were very expensive, most had bags attached crammed with valuable items for the ride. Not one was locked. Such was the community feeling. The party in the beer tent was one of the happiest I’ve ever participated in. Not one person looked anything but sweaty, dirty, tired and completely exuberant. As the Mustang team congregated, the live band performed “Mustang Sally” for us. Amid the dancing and cheering, every 50 year old woman in the tent found me to wish me a happy birthday and offer me a drink (which I politely declined because I don’t trust myself to drink and ride). Serendipitously, I literally ran into a college friend, Sue Sweeney, whom I hadn’t seen in 30 years. But it was the hugs and congratulations of my teammates and friends that put joy in my heart. When Ryan Scheckel, who had been sleeping off the effects of the previous day’s ride (and party) finally caught up with us, proudly wearing his Mustang jersey, I thought the day was complete.

Except that we still had 25 miles to go. And the final 17 were expected to be the hardest, with over 1,000 feet of uphill climb.

(Tomorrow: Part 2)

Triple Word Tuesday

LET’S GET PHYSICAL!

I had an awesome class this morning with the TRX and weight bands. I was so jazzed, I found myself dancing to the music during the instructions, waiting for everyone else to change stations, and a little bit while I was lifting. I don’t know why this video came to mind – after watching it, I know I look more like Olivia’s “victims” than like Olivia. But I was having WAY MORE FUN than the men in the video!

In Recovery

On university campuses, May is a time of dinners, receptions, celebrations of many stripes. It is also the time when colleagues, holed up in offices all winter, emerge blinking in the sun, and greet one another with exclamations of “I haven’t seen you in so long!” At one such occasion the other night, I was happy to see the wife of one of our Deans, whom I hadn’t seen in, well, so long. She said, “You look fabulous! How have you done it?”

Normally, when people ask me that question, I assume they are interested in a short answer – diet and exercise OR bariatric surgery. So I generally respond, “The old-fashioned way.” For some reason, on this particular occasion, I launched into a longer and less clear explanation. I found myself telling her that I had refused for many years to take a real look at WHY I was fat. That, in fact, I preferred to believe that the only plausible reason was that I was engineered that way. I definitely wasn’t one of those people who was overweight for psychological or emotional reasons. I told her that I finally had to take a hard look at myself and evaluate my irrational thinking.

Last night, I attended a presentation being offered as part of our pre-finals “Stress Buster Week”, in which a panel of guests shared their personal stories of alcoholism and recovery. As I listened, for the first time it struck me just how much my relationship with food mirrored their relationships with alcohol. One panelist stated, “For most people, a few drinks quenches their desire or need for more. For an alcoholic, a few drinks just makes you more thirsty.” Substitute “food” for the word “drinks” in those sentences, and they will be true for me. In the same session, I heard the panelists say:

  • I knew I wasn’t normal. When I was drinking was the only time I felt normal.
  • Teachers and speakers told us alcohol was evil. But alcohol comforted me, so I wasn’t willing to do anything about it.
  • I drank in secret whenever I could get away with it. As long a no one saw me drink, I didn’t have a problem.
  • I was so ashamed.

Wow. These statements were all eerily familiar to me as well. I know there is a group called Overeaters’ Anonymous, patterned after A.A. I never considered joining, and when it was suggested to me periodically, I always said, “I’m just not a joiner.” Denial much?! And, if I am completely honest with myself, I wanted to distance myself from all those fat people. After all, I wasn’t one of them. I may have been fat, but that didn’t make me like those other people – I was smart and educated and never bought more than one value meal for myself at McDonalds. The fact that I looked upon others who struggled with the same issues as me with such repugnance is a testament to the irrationality of my thinking, and to the power of my addiction. I didn’t want to give it up, and if I admitted to having problems, I would be forced to face that food was just my drug of choice.

Another thing the panelists said last night that made me nod in agreement:  “The whole forever thing really tripped me up. To get better, I would have to stop drinking for the rest of my life. No way I was going to do that!” In order to truly face my addiction to food, I knew that the lifestyle changes I  needed to make would have to be lifelong. I read in one article that overweight women my age would need to work out 60-90 minutes a day, every day, for the rest of their lives to lose the weight and keep it off. Talk about a daunting prospect. Plus, I would need to maintain a change in my relationship to food – no more whole pizzas or whole bags of cheddar goldfish in a single sitting. In fact, I may have to forego some foods altogether if I couldn’t learn to control the portions. Yes, I definitely saw myself in the panelists’ struggle to come to terms with their addictions.

But here’s the really amazing thing: each member of the panel HAS faced his or her addiction, with incredibly positive and powerful results. Listening to their stories of living in recovery, and the positive changes that have taken place across all facets of their lives I started nodding along. I recognized myself in this part of the story as well. As I sat there, I was suffused with an overpowering sense of gratitude for each of our stories. I almost said, “for the happy endings to each of our stories”, but if I’ve learned anything (either in the last couple of years or from last night’s speakers), there is no happy ending to our stories. Our lives continue as stories being told one sentence at a time. One of the panelists summed it up, perfectly, “I take it one day at a time. Because I know that if I succeed today, tomorrow will be better.”

Mid-bloom

I follow National Geographic on Twitter. Just as has always been true of their magazine, they publish amazing snapshots, including  this photo (click link, at site go to April Week 3, sunflower photo April 12) of a sunflower in mid-bloom. When I saw this, it seemed such an apt metaphor for so many things: those moments when we are on the cusp of something new, when we are being born into a new self – whether that is due to a new perspective, a new relationship, a flowering of potential we’ve carried within and are now expressing.

Tuesday, it seemed the metaphor for an unplanned moment of revelation. We were to have a speaker for a motivational presentation at 9:00 a.m. Unfortunately, our speaker woke with a fever and was forced to cancel. There wasn’t time to call off the event, so we regrouped with the ten or so people in attendance and asked them to share what inspires them. In a wonderfully serendipitous moment, a woman in the group chose to share her life story. It was one of transformation and self-discovery after a painful beginning which included alcoholism and low self-esteem. Her turning point came after watching her daughter succeed in breaking the example provided by the two preceding generations of her family. This woman revealed, fresh petal by fresh petal, the new person she is becoming, the beautiful new life she is creating. It was both inspiring and moving to be part of that moment.

Which offers a real contrast to my current state, because today a flower frozen in mid-bloom feels like an appropriate metaphor for where I am in my life. I was like a tightly closed bud, carrying the potential to bloom, but waiting for the right combination of sun and rain and nutrients to open.  In the past year and a half, I have felt myself opening, one petal at a time. Most of the time in recent months, I have felt the energy of new life in my veins. I have literally felt growth and movement.

But not now.

This week, I feel like I’ve run out of juice or as if there isn’t enough sunlight to produce the necessary photosynthesis (I’m sure I would be applying this metaphor more gracefully if I had paid attention in high school biology). The petals that have opened are lovely and I am proud of them. I very much wish the rest to open so I feel both wholly lovely and more complete. Less unfinished. But I suddenly find I am casting a shadow over myself, blocking my own sunlight: through procrastination, through permissive self-talk (“go ahead, eat that donut/cookie/whole package of rice thins, it won’t hurt this once”), through choosing not to follow through. By letting myself off the hook.

I’m not sure how to unfreeze from this weird stasis I’ve entered into. Perhaps I just got distracted by how pretty those first open petals are – like Narcissus, who fell in love with his own reflection, I’ve spent too much time in awe of myself, congratulating myself on what is done. And now, realizing that I still have half my blooming to do, I vacillate between impatience and paralysis.

One thing I do know for sure from sad experience as a child: you cannot force a flower to bloom by prying its petals open. Just wanting it isn’t enough, either. I will have to get back to holding myself accountable, though right now that feels almost insurmountably hard. This isn’t going to be one of those blog posts where I tie things up neatly with a final statement of what I’ve learned or an inspirational quote. Instead, it is one of those posts where I end with a shrug and say, I’ll let you know what happens next.

(Note: sorry I couldn’t show the photo in a less a clunky way, but I understand National Geographic’s need to maintain control of their incredible images. Hope you are able to find the sunflower!)

An Inside Job

Recently, I have been lamenting, kvetching, complaining or just plain old whining about being stuck, weight-wise that is. I have recommitted to my goals, renewed my determination, and reviewed You: On a Diet to little avail. I have upped my workouts in both time and intensity and (with the exception of a little Oscar night snacking) have measured and counted calories with real discipline. There has been some incredibly slow, incremental movement on the scale, but I’ve been impatient.

Then yesterday came along, in the middle of a busy and frustrating week, and something shifted. I was sore from an incredibly demanding workout on Tuesday, but I powered through an intense early morning cardio blast. When I got dressed for work, I just felt right in both my skin and my clothes.

After work, I went clothes shopping with my friend, Sara. I looked at myself in the full-length mirror, just before trying on the massive pile of clothing I brought into the fitting room. And for what was the first time in many years, what I thought wasn’t, “Wow, look how fat you are” or, more recently, “Wow, I thought I’d lost more weight than that.” The thought I had, standing in the Von Maur fitting room under horrendous fluorescent light was, “Hmmm. I look normal.”

Normal. As in, not huge. Not outside the norm. I felt like anyone else might feel in a fitting room, preparing to try on clothes — I could see my figure “flaws”, I could see what I wanted new clothes to emphasize or detract from. But standing there, in a short-sleeved t-shirt over a long-sleeved thermal shirt, and broken-in jeans I also thought I would blend in any crowd. So what that the pants I was trying on came from the women’s section, and the shirts did not? So what if I wasn’t at my ideal weight – who in the fitting rooms was?

As I tried on clothes, Sara and I found quite a few looks to laugh at. But almost everything I tried on fit, some things just didn’t work. As I made my selections, and put my own clothes back on, I realized how happy I was at that moment (even before getting to the shoe department!).

Happy and clothes shopping. Two concepts that, for most of my life, have been diametrically opposed. And I realized that this new experience was an inside job — meaning that it really had nothing to do with the external circumstances of the reading on a scale, or how I looked in a full-length mirror, or whether manufacturers made clothes that fit my frame. Instead, it had everything to do with what I was feeling and accomplishing internally. I have really been working hard – harder than I ever have – on my fitness and diet. And I am so proud of that work, and so surprised to discover capabilities beyond my expectations. Being proud of myself for being disciplined and for being internally motivated is a very new feeling. And a very good one.

So, this morning, still sore from Tuesday, I rolled out of bed with every intention of another workout with the dreaded TRX bands. And because its Thursday, before getting into my workout clothes, I stepped on the scale. Down a pound. Cool, but not defining. Moments later, I stepped out the door, on my way to another normal day.

Comparative Obsession

For many years, I pretty much refused to step on a scale.  What did I weigh at my heaviest?  Who knows?  The highest number I ever saw register on a scale was 352 pounds.  Over the past few years, I’ve thought a lot about my weight.  Sometimes, I have been accused (or pointed the finger at myself) of being obsessed with the scale, my weight, or some other aspect of weight loss. Of allowing my mood to be dictated by my progress or lack of progress. Of always talking about my “weight loss journey”.

Last night, I started thinking about this.  And a thought came into my head that feels right and true – and not only because it lets me off the hook (though that’s a nice side benefit!).

Every day, every minute, of my 352 pound life I was obsessed with my weight.

The thoughts that consumed me were all about this one factor of my life – what I could do/could not do/was too embarrassed to do; what I would eat/would not eat/would never let someone see me eat; what people thought about me/didn’t think about me…there’s an endless list of weight-related items, and I haven’t even gotten to the self-loathing thoughts, the cruel comments of others, the invisibility I had in public as the “elephant” in the room and how those things impacted my obsessive thinking.

Today, I thought about my weight at the following times:  when I got up and stepped on the scale; when I went to the gym and worked with my trainer; at each meal; when I declined the offer of dinner out at a Mexican restaurant because I can’t control myself around the free chips baskets.  And now, as I sit writing the post I will publish on my blog in the morning.

What was happening in between those moments of focus on my weight?  I walked to work just as the sun broke through clouds and I rejoiced to feel light and warmth on my face.  I laughed. I interacted with friends and colleagues. I took the stairs without thinking about it because that’s what I do now: I take the stairs!  In other words, I went happily about my day.

There are whole chunks of time in which I am busy thinking about something other than what I weigh and the complicated mental and emotional underpinnings of being fat and ashamed.  Where I am now, even with the continued focus on losing weight (and the frustration I’m feeling about this last stubborn 60 pounds), is pretty good – and by comparison to my old life, not obsessive at all!

That said, I’m not where I want to be yet.  To get there will require focus and determined effort.  There will be times when it seems, both to myself and to others, that there is only one thing in my life that I care about.  Friends may tire of listening to me talk about it, I may tire of listening to myself talk about it. But this obsession leads to a healthier, happier life, full of opportunities and promise. Seems like a comparatively small price to pay.

Why Am I Still Doing This?

A few weeks ago, I was feeling pretty discouraged that my weight was stuck in the 230-233 range for a very long time.  One of the frustrations was that I would weigh myself daily, but Thursdays – when I take a snapshot of the scale and post it to this blog – were always my heaviest day of the week.  So, being the superstitious person I am, I started taking snapshots any day that the scale showed a lower weight.  In my (admittedly warped) mind, this was proof against Thursday — and my body wouldn’t dare put up a higher weight when I could prove I had weighed less the day before!

This morning, when I stepped on the scale, up slightly from last week, which was up slightly from the week before…well, I was pretty frustrated.  I had a photo from earlier in the week where the reading on the scale was 225.  I thought seriously about posting that photo instead of today’s.

As I sat at my computer, indecision gave way to resolve.  I have to choose the whole truth when it comes to this journey — the good, the bad, the ugly…that has been my internal contract since I started blogging about my weight loss.  Whether anyone ever looks at it or not, I have to tell my story as honestly as I can.  NOT being truthful with myself is, to a great degree, what made this journey necessary in the first place.

So, here are some truths I have to keep telling myself:

  • Losing weight is hard.  Even after all this time, despite ongoing daily commitment and more good choices than bad choices, it remains hard to do.
  • It would be nice to have the pounds drop off “Biggest Loser” style, but for most people who have large amounts to lose, and for me, weight loss is a long journey: a marathon, not a sprint!
  • Be happy about progress, even though it may not show in the way you want it to on the scale.  My body shape has been changing while my weight has not.  I am now uniformly wearing size 16W in pants, and regular XL or Large in tops.  Two nights ago, I bought my first size 14W skirt.  While it is strange to be straddling the “womens” department and the other departments at stores, it is also awesome!
  • Feeling good trumps everything else! This is the secret that is so hard to hold on to when I get discouraged at the scale.  Imagine, if you can, how it felt to weigh 352 pounds…panic attacks, labored breathing, never feeling good about how I looked, never fitting in chairs or public transportation…I can tell you that it rarely felt good.  Now, I pretty much feel great every day, both physically and psychically.

Posting my weight on Thursdays keeps me honest – with myself and with anyone else who looks at my posts.  I want others to know that, while there are plenty of them, it is worth the hard parts.  And I want myself to know that the truth has, truly, set me free. And that, friends, is why I am still doing this.

Wherever I go, there I am!

One day last week (like Alexander in the children’s book by Judith Viorst),  I was having a terrible, horrible, very bad, no good day I updated my Facebook status to say, “I don’t mean to be a whiner, but today totally bites.”  That evening, I had a voicemail from one of my oldest friends.  She said, “Please don’t take this the wrong way, but I was so happy to see your Facebook status!  You’ve been so chipper for so long, I was beginning to wonder who you were, and what you did with my friend!”  Was there any way to take that message other than to laugh and admit she had a point?

Dear readers, I have often shared that my life has changed materially in the time since I began this blog.  It is true, I am happy for probably the first time in my adult life.  The kind of happy that penetrates deep below the surface of daily ups and downs.  The type of happy that prevents me from writing depressing status updates or complaining incessantly about minutiae.  I am “big picture” happy — and that is a really great place to be.

If you don’t know me, or if, like my relieved friend above, you stay up-to-date through electronic means and infrequent chats, you might not be getting an accurate picture of how my newly happy self interacts with the world.  Those who see me daily were less surprised, I am sure, to read my complaint!  Being happy doesn’t mean I have stopped expressing emotional ups AND downs, or that I have magically overcome all hurdles in my emotional, physical, or professional life.  Far from it.

Example #1:  I am able to go for relatively lengthy periods of time having what I would call a “right relationship” with food.  I eat and truly enjoy fresh, healthy food prepared by my own hands.  In fact, this begins to feel so right and so normal for me, that I start to believe that I have conquered the old “wrong relationship” of using food to feed my emotional needs — I mean, anyone can overcome an ingrained, lifelong coping mechanism, right?  And then a really difficult hurdle pops up and I find myself eating my way through a Thursday night and most of a Friday.

Example #2: Negative self-talk is something most of us have experience with.  I have sometimes taken it to the extreme of hatefully loathing self-talk.  (If I heard someone say to another person the things I’ve said to myself, I would be unable to refrain from physical violence.)  Even on good days, I sometimes catch sight of myself in a mirror and that voice in my head starts in:  “You think you look good?  Who are you kidding?  No wonder you’re alone. Look at you, who would ever be attracted to that?”

Example #3: When I have a bad day at work, I am tempted just like everyone else is, to rail against the other people who are clearly, patently, responsible for my bad day. Some days I totally give in to that temptation, and suddenly the number of miserable people multiplies exponentially. Who doesn’t start to feel worse when they spend time with Debbie Downer?

But the big difference about these situations now, what causes me to seem so changed to my old friends —  none of those things defines me, nor do they set my agenda for days and weeks to come.  Fell off the food wagon?  I’m no easily bruised peach, and I’m certainly able to catch up to the wagon and jump back on!  Talking smack at myself?  It may not always be easy, but I tell that biach to shut up if she doesn’t have anything constructive to offer.  Having a bad day at the office?  Get in line! Or better yet, stop complaining and find something productive to do.  I really have learned to stop my negative spirals and bring my spirit and mood back up to even keel.  Some days I can do that immediately, others it takes longer.  But I do get there, and that is the biggest gift happiness brings to my life.

So, to all my friends who have wondered where the real me went, SURPRISE! She’s still here.  She’s just the new and improved version: more resilient, more self-confident, less cranky…most, but not all, of the time.