Sisterly Visit

My sister came to visit over the weekend.  Her husband is in the military and they are stationed in Japan.  I hadn't seen her for about two years.  I hadn't seen my brother-in-law over three years.  It was great to see them again!

I felt a little embarrassed about my weight.  I realized that I've gained about 50lbs since I'd last seen both of them.  My sister and I went shopping and I couldn't try clothes on at the same stores.  We were walking through the stores and I kept seeing all these gorgeous dresses/shirts/sweaters.  There were so many things I wanted to buy, but I couldn't.   Money was saved, but that's not the point.  My closet is full of clothes I don't wear anymore because they don't fit well.  I've held onto them because "some day" they'll fit again.  It's stupid and doesn't make any sense.  Even if they fit again, my style and life have changed.

My resolution is to clean out my closet of all the old clothes.  Good will could use them.  When I need new clothes I'll buy go out and buy them with my sister.

Hmmm....failure?

So I think this week has been a bit of a bust on the whole "change my lifestyle" road.  One of the good points for the week--I didn't eat out at all.  This helps my budget and my calorie intake.  So score one for me.  On the downside while I've discovered a website with really great lite recipes, I still need to work on portion control.  After working from 5am-8pm I find myself coming home eating three servings of what should be a healthy one serving.  Still better than eating out.  I also didn't make it to the gym this week.  Even on the days when I got done early, I was so tired I just came straight home.  Home is like quicksand.  Once I get here, I rarely get out.  It doesn't matter if it's going to the gym or the grocery store.  I don't want to leave.  Overall, not the week I was hoping for, but I've got room for improvement.  Goals for next week: don't eat out and make it to the gym three times.  Good goal. 

I'm working hard to change the way I think.  Before, if I was dieting and ate something I wasn't supposed to I'd say "the whole day is a loss" and then go crazy.  I expected to immediately be perfect.  Perfect at the diet and perfect at the exercise plan.  Some of my OCD tendencies from work?  The problem with this being that when I fail at something, I obsess, beat myself up about it, and emotionally eat.  Uh, can we say vicious cycle?  You'd think since I have insight it would be easy to stop...not so much. 

Let's hope insight keeps me on a good path next week.

Things to Do

So I went on vacation this week—flew out to visit the grandparents.  I’ve thought before about those moments when you realize your weight is out of control.  I had another one while on vacation.  My airplane seatbelt almost didn’t fit.  I squeezed, panicked, and finally got it buckled.  Not a moment I ever want to repeat.  I felt so ashamed.  I know I’m not the person you want to sit next to on the plane.  I’ve known that for years.  I’ve had my friends post on facebook how miserable it is to sit next to the overweight person who takes up part of their seat.  And I understand.  I don’t want to be any more uncomfortable than I have to while flying.  So I always request an aisle seat and lean to the side, keep my arm crossed, so I’m not touching the person next to me.  I think I was trying to will myself smaller.   This time I felt like I’d been slapped in the face with it.  I guess when you’ve got all this other noise in your head, it takes a slap to get your attention.   I have no idea why this has hit me so hard.  There have been other things my weight has prevented me from doing.  Maybe because this is such an everyday thing?  So I have yet another reason to keep trying to lose weight.   And I’ve decided to think about all those other things my weight prevented me from doing.  I think I’ll mark my progress by these.  I’ve hoping they will be a little more tangible than numbers.  Most are stupid things, but for me they matter.  My goal is to do all of them over the next two years. 

1.       Be a bone marrow donor

2.       Sky dive

3.       Run a 5k

4.       Wear knee high boots

5.       Be a "single digit" size

6.       Not have surgical gloves roll down my forearms

7.       Be able to sit on someone’s lap without worrying I’m hurting them

8.       Have a guy pick me up as a joke

9.       Be comfortable enough with my body to get a bikini wax

10.   Have my doctor use the regular size blood pressure cuff

Welcome

I've heard other people say "it's not like you suddenly wake up one morning and you're fat." Well, that's true. It takes time to gain weight. Day after day of poor eating choices and a sedentary lifestyle. You don't go to bed one night, a perfect size 6 and wake up the next morning a size 16. At the same time, it's a gradual evolution. You don't have to buy new jeans every month because you're gaining weight so quickly. It takes years of weight gain for many people, myself included, to wake up and realize you're fat. And not just fat, but obese, morbidly obese. And when you do, you try to think back to figure out how this happened.

I can still remember in elementary school being the skinny one. I can remember looking down and seeing every rib in my chest. I remember that I loved to run and play outside. So what changed?? For me, it was a little like a perfect storm--maybe that's a little dramatic, but that's how I feel now. I was this active skinny little kid, living in a small town, eating family meals. Then my family moved to a larger city and began eating out more. Pizza delivery, fast food which translates to a lot more calories. There wasn't the same outdoors space for me to play in. Organized sports were never big in my family and I had no interest in them so I stopped moving as much. Then I had major surgery on my hip due to a bone disease. I wasn't this active kid anymore. I spent over month in a wheelchair and it was a full three months before I could walk without crutches. Meanwhile, my mom was stressed and tired from trying to take care of me. So we ate out more, had more frozen/prepackaged meals, and she gave me treats to make me feel better. So I slowly recovered and gained weight. I had two more surgeries each about one year apart. Another on my hip and one on my knee. A total of three surgeries over three years. Then I experienced something I'd never felt before. I was afraid to move and run. I wasn't this fearless crazy little kid who would climb trees and jump on connecting stones across a stream without a thought. I was afraid to hurt myself, afraid I'd cause myself pain. So now there was caution in my movements. Over the course of three years, at the age of 14, my diet deteriorated, I became significantly less active, and my weight struggles began.

This continued throughout junior high and high school. I wasn't involved in sports, partly my interest and partly my family's fear for my health. I was the smart kid, taking the hardest classes and spending all my time studying. I slowly gained weight. I was teased for being heavy and fat. I would get notes in my lockers calling me names. Some even encouraged me to kill myself. "Miss Obesity, You're gross and disgusting. Why don't you just kill yourself and do everyone a favor." A doctor never diagnosed me with depression, but only because they never asked. I avoided activity in gym because they would tease me more. I lacked energy for anything but school. And I ate. And I slowly gained weight. By the time I graduated high school, I was overweight and bordering on obese.

College was better, but had even more opportunity for poor food choices. I didn't gain the typical freshman fifteen, but the freshman thirty. Eating became not only something to do when you were sad to make yourself feel better, but an important social event. You eat meals with all your friends, you go out to eat, go out of midnight taco bell, or midnight ice cream. So I ate my way though college.

From the time I was three years old, I said I wanted to be a doctor. So while I ate my way through life, I studied hard and was accepted to medical school. I ate my through medical school and half way through residency. 

 

So ten years after high school and I had met all my goals.....  I was an MD, 100lbs over my high school weight, and 150lbs over my ideal body weight (medical ideal body weight, not the media's version).

 

So today I've decided to wake up and start working on myself.  Embarking on loosing weight and more importantly feeling better about myself.  Nothing overly exciting or profound.  Just a girl with first hand knowledge on the health impacts of obesity trying to change for the better.  Maybe I'll succeed or at least inspire someone else to try.