The History of Fat: Part 2

So, when last we left our intrepid dieter she had suffered the loss of her mom at the age of 14. Let's see how this will affect the heroine of our story. 

The answer to this weird "narration" is, of course that it affected everything, it changed everything. For one thing, it apparently makes me speak about myself in third person. 

Seriously though, I don't think I'm going to surprise anyone by saying that having my mom die when she was only 49 was atrocious on an epic scale. I went through all the stages of grief; denial, bargaining, anger depression and acceptance. The depression stage stuck around for a LONG time and the acceptance one was quite a while in coming.  And spread throughout all the stages (including long after I came into acceptance) was the "binging on food" stage. 

After a 2-3 month long denial phase where I kept assuring everyone who asked that I was, "Fine. Really!" (and I ACTUALLY believed this to be true) I crashed hard into reality. 

When the numbness finally faded there was nothing left to block the glaring reality that my mommy was dead and I would never get to see her; or hug her; or talk to her again. 

I wanted to escape that reality more than anything. Thankfully, there was an insistent, logical voice that kept telling me that escaping into a substance like drugs or alcohol was sure to ruin my life. That voice (it sounded like a combination of my Dad and the bad voice-over from an After School Special) assured me that only pain existed down that path. 

So, I found a different crutch. I found a way to smother feelings and dull the pain with something that no one had warned me about.

Food. 

Of course I knew that eating too much would make me fat. But compared with being a strung-out junkie, some extra weight didn't really seem so bad. 

What I didn't think about was how unhealthy it would make me in the long run. Or how dependent I would become on food to cheer me up. 

"Having a crappy day? What's more effective than "comfort food" to comfort you? 

Disappointed by something? Soothe your frustration with a giant bowl of ice cream!

Angry? Bury that anger deep under a mountain of McDonald's!"

As strong as any other addiction was my "high" of being overly full.  When most people are stuffed they tend to think, "Ugh!  I ate WAY too much!"  But I just felt satisfied.  I didn't realize what an addiction that feeling of fullness had become until MANY years later when, as a new mom I was happy and content and SO in love with my beautiful baby girl.  But still, I wouldn't feel "complete" until my stomach felt full.  

I want to stress that I'm not talking about a regular, healthy, full feeling.  That's what you should be looking for; you should be listening to your body's natural signals that will tell you, "Ding! That's it, your stomach is full and you've received all the nutrition and fuel you need right now."

I'm talking about a stretched out, filled beyond capacity feeling.  Gorged.  I'm talking - a whole extra large pizza; 12 hot wings; 16 cinnamon sticks; and a bag of chips - kind of full.  The kind of over-stuffing that gets you to over 300 pounds.  And I found myself unable to stop "chasing the high" that came with that STUFFED feeling.  I simply couldn't feel "settled" without it.  If I ate less than that, I felt like I was missing something; hungry for something far beyond the food I craved.

It's incredibly hard to explain if you've never experienced it, but what I've finally come to understand is that I had comforted myself with food for so long that without that feeling, I was unable to feel happy and comforted.  It was like an itch.  Like a need.  Like an addiction.  There was no doubt about it.

And as I sat in my living room, jonesing for a pizza to the point of desperation, it occurred to me, finally, at the ripe old age of 30, that maybe, just maybe I had a problem bigger than just not fitting into a size 6.  

I'd like to be able to say that that moment of epiphany made all the difference and I immediately kicked the habit and have been shedding off the pounds ever since.  But, of course, I wouldn't be here, writing this today, if that was the case.  It took a LONG time and a LOT of soul-searching, depression-fighting and frustration-coping (with a fair bit more denial thrown in) before I was finally, actually ready to do something about it.

The moment came last May long weekend when I went out to our extended family's trailer for the day and broke one of their chairs.  This was NOT a spindly little chair.  This was a big, "bought especially for me", rugged camp chair.  You know the kind; it's made of canvas and folds up to be put away.  Well, our lovely friends had thought about me and bought me a chair that would be just mine to use when I was there.  It was made especially strong and was meant, I'm sure, to be used by big, ice-fishing men. 

Well, I broke it.  

I was sitting on it and all of a sudden - SNAP!! One of the rivets broke on it.  And that was it.  That was my "turn around" moment.  Not only was it incredibly embarrassing (In spite of the assurances that "It's no big deal!" and "It was probably just a weak rivet.") but it was also amazing to me that I had actually allowed myself to get to that point.  

So, the next day I went to my doctor's office and weighed myself for the first time in years.  I was 355 lbs.  I was OVER three hundred and fifty pounds.  It was a little heart-breaking, but also kind of solidifying.  I was now 100% sure that I was done with making food more than fuel for my body.  So, that afternoon I pulled out some old Weight Watchers stuff I had and began "counting points" the very next day.  

I did things slowly and there were a couple of setbacks, after all when a drug addict or alcoholic get sober they can avoid all contact with their addiction.  That's not really possible with food.

But I had hit my "rock bottom" and was definitely ready to scratch my way back up.  I was doing great all summer and into the beginning of the fall.  In total, I lost 46 lbs and was down to 309 lbs.  I was close to breaking the 300 pound mark; a barrier that I was very excited to see the other side of.  Then in the middle of October, the Universe decided to send another challenge my way, so out popped a disc in my back.

Over the last eight months I've been dealing with incredible pain and fighting off a lot of depression.  It seemed to me for a while that the Universe didn't want me to succeed; that this was some kind of karmic retribution for never fully understanding the pain my mom had dealt with for years and years.  

But I have now come to a different, and much more hopeful conclusion.  I believe that the pain I'm in now is a direct result of having cared improperly for my body for A LONG time.  Then when I began exercising more, my body was simply unprepared for the changes and it got hurt.  It's nothing more than biology and physics.  I was a body out of motion for so long that I could no longer handle being in motion.  

(And maybe, just maybe, the Universe saw this as a chance to challenge whether or not, I was real in my desire to change.)

I have to admit, that I have turned to food a couple of times for comfort when the pain has been especially bad.  And I have gained back 6 pounds.  But I haven't yet chased down that overly-stuffed, gorged feeling.  I think that empty void that I'd been trying to fill for so long has been filled with something other than food.  It is now filled with resolve.  

I am resolved that I will succeed in becoming a healthy version of me.  I am resolved that I will be able to run and play with my daughter before she is a teenager and has no interest in "running and playing".  I am resolved that I will look in the mirror and not hate the body that I see there.  I am resolved that the reason I will no longer hate that body isn't because it's going to resemble some kind of runway model, but because it is my instrument; my tool to live my life to it's fullest.  And I am resolved that it is going to do just that.

So, please, as I write about my journey here, send me good thoughts and prayers that that resolve holds up.  

Thus endeth the history lessons.  

Now to go create a new history for myself!