Weekly Weigh In #3

There isn’t going to be a weigh-in this week and I’ll let you know why. 

Losing weight is hard work. But it’s not just measuring food, counting calories, or putting in the exercise. One major thing that gets overlooked a lot in the journey of weight loss is the mental baggage that comes out along the way.

I stopped taking care of myself this week and put myself on the back burner.

This past week hasn’t been easy; so much so that I gave into cravings, ditched counting my calories, and the only physical activity I had was the usual house chores and walking around the grocery store. I stopped taking care of myself this week and put myself on the back burner. I have been sitting with myself in thought about what was wrong with me. Why was I unhappy? I lost almost three pounds last week! I should be feeling great! But I was actually feeling very emotional, very lost and very scared. I didn’t feel worthy of doing myself the justice of working on myself. I sat wondering how I really got this way, what made me turn to food, what was I missing in life? I wondered if it was even really worth it to better myself when I can’t even see my own self worth in the mirror.

This week I’ve unpacked a lot of emotional baggage in order to help me lose the physical baggage hanging around me.

As cathartic as this will be, I’m still going to keep this short in detail. One of the earliest memories I had about my weight was when I was about 7 years old or so. My mom insisted on putting me on a diet. I didn’t understand what a diet was. I didn’t know what that meant. All I know is my mom said I needed to lose 20 pounds before she’d let me have a slice of pizza. I didn’t know what that meant! I remember my mom constantly yo-yo dieting. One month she’d drink nothing but Slim Fasts, the next month she’d be on the toast, black coffee and grapefruit diet. But I never gave it thought. I just remember that she told me I’d be on a diet. I never knew how much I weighed because no one told me. I didn’t understand nutrition or calories. All I knew was, if I wanted a slice of pizza, I’d have to lose 20 pounds. I don’t even remember if I did. I don’t even remember stepping on a scale. Although I do remember going on a field trip to go skiing while this was going on and crying to one of the teachers that I wasn’t allowed to eat that piece of pizza they put in front of me because my mom said I needed to lose 20 pounds first.

I was a latchkey kid, I was responsible for getting myself ready for school in the morning, getting myself breakfast, packing my own lunch and so on. Left to my own devices, I never really knew what was good for me. So sure, I’d eat that pizza from last night for breakfast, sometimes I’d even have two slices! Because no one was watching me. I’m sure, once again, my weight was getting out of control, but no one ever brought it to my attention. My mother would make comments about how I was already wearing junior or adult sizes by the time I was 9 or 10, but she never mentioned my weight to me again.  She took me to a doctor once to discuss it, but I wasn’t talked to about it. No one explained anything to me. The only thing I was told to do was write down what I was eating. Nothing ever came from it, though. There was no follow through. So once again, I was left to my own devices. During the physical fitness tests in PE as a kid, the gym teachers made me sit out because they didn’t want me to embarrass myself. Of course, I didn’t understand what they meant at the time. Knowing what I know now, I’m just as embarrassed from being made to sit out rather than if I had actually done the tests.

My brother joined the military when I was 7. He was very fit and physically active. He actively lifted weights and ran. I was bullied in the playground as a kid so I refused to go outside anymore. I became an instant couch potato. I saw my brother drinking soda like it was his life source so I copied him and drank just as much. I never realized how many calories a can of Mountain Dew had because those things were never explained to me. I was very ignorant, but I’m afraid my family was too in that sense. Even if they weren’t ignorant, they never did anything to redirect where I was headed. The only thing I remember my brother ever doing for me weight-wise was throwing a bottle of diet pills at me when I was 13 and telling me I “need to lose weight, fat ass.” It was both hurtful and very unhelpful. So I think I only continued to gain weight from there. I was ashamed of myself, too embarrassed and humiliated to talk to my parents about it, so I continued to comfort myself with eating instead.

During this time, it should be noted that for a period of time I had been sexually molested by a neighborhood kid between the ages of 5 and 7. While it did end there with this particular person, I had been physically assaulted and molested at age 10 by another kid that bullied me ferociously in school. While these things have been gradually worked through in various therapy sessions as an adult, these were also traumatic events that further escalated my depression, anxiety and my out of control eating habits. While I may not have understood this at the time, it is something that I can see now affected me more greatly than I realized.

If I had been an adult, I may have turned to alcohol or even possibly drugs. I just may have even taken my own life.

Now as I’ve said previously, I was always the fat friend. The cool yet undateable chick. I was taunted and teased when my first ever crush found out I liked him and our friend group had ostracized and ridiculed me to the point that I could no longer even face them. I was only 12 at that time. It only furthered me into being bullied more in school. During my high school career, as if things couldn’t have gotten worse, I lost three of my childhood friends to suicide. I felt even more alone and isolated and the only thing I could use to comfort myself when I wasn’t self harming myself was to eat. I couldn’t explain why. If I had been an adult, I may have turned to alcohol or even possibly drugs. I just may have even taken my own life. But instead, I turned to food and ate as a way to cope for a life I couldn’t understand.

We all, in a way, fear failing ourselves. I feel like I’ve been failing myself for the last 31 years.

I didn’t understand what calories or nutrition or macros meant until I was in my twenties. As I said in a previous post, I didn’t even realize I had gotten to be 260 pounds until my sister approached me about my weight. When it comes to my ignorance in my youth, I feel it was wasted and very regretful. Instead of just going outside and trying to be brave and try out for volleyball or track, I hid in my house away from everyone and further secluded myself. It fueled my anxiety and depression. It caused me more grief and aggravation growing up than if I had been better educated as a child and corrected my habits then. Habits are a lot harder to break as you get older. You are trying to retrain your brain into a different thought pattern. You are trying to let go of an old way of living and into a new one. It’s scary. It’s the unknown. We all, in a way, fear failing ourselves. I feel like I’ve been failing myself for the last 31 years. I feel that my parents (had they themselves been educated enough) failed me in some of my shortcomings. Both my parents had weight problems. Their siblings and parents all had weight problems. It was a learned behavior that they continued and carried on to my siblings and myself. My brother joined the military and it helped him maintain an active lifestyle. My sister and I both are still constantly struggling with our weight from our learned behaviors as children. It’s a vicious cycle. Now I have my own daughter. I couldn’t imagine ever having her go through the things I did as a child.

While I’m not going to completely blame all of my problems on my parents and their own short-comings, I will say that I wish they had been better educated. My mother passed away a year and a half ago and I will never be able to talk to her about these struggles. While she was my greatest support system in trying to lose weight as an adult, I only wish she had been more constructive and helpful when I was a child, when I needed her the most. I may never get that closure with her but it’s better for me to come to terms with where things went wrong so that I can continue changing them for my future.

It is quite literally an addiction.

Anyone that has ever been on a weight loss journey like myself has fallen off the wagon from time to time. Losing weight and breaking bad eating habits can be compared just as much to someone trying to abstain and stay sober from alcohol or drugs. It is quite literally an addiction. It’s a place to go to for comfort and relief. Relief from emotional pain, anxiety and depression. It’s something that makes you forget about your problems for a while. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to give up. It just means that I am learning once more from my mistakes and am going to try my hardest to pick up where I started and keep going. It won’t be easy but usually these things never are. If it were easy, we’d never learn from our struggles and we wouldn’t appreciate the work we put into ourselves.

We are all a work in progress. However, we deserve to love ourselves the same as we love our families and those closest to us. We deserve to take care of ourselves, it’s vital and absolutely necessary. My mother died when I was 30. I want to live as long as I possibly can to be there for my daughter as she grows up. I want to teach her the right things to eat, the benefits of having an active lifestyle. I want her to be the strong willed and courageous little creature that she has the potential to be. I can no longer let these hang ups of mine keep dragging me down. There is too much at stake.

So while there has been no weekly weigh-in this week, I feel an immense amount of emotional weight lifted from my shoulders. Without this baggage hanging over me, I feel like I am much more capable in carrying on this journey into the following weeks. If you’re still here, thanks for following along and for any encouragement you may have to give. If you yourself are struggling, please know that while we are all struggling, I promise that if you keep going, it’s going to be so much more worth it than letting yourself fall short. You deserve better. With love.