This is something I wrote for my blog in February of 2012. At that time, I'd only been on Weight Watchers for a few weeks and had lost close to 20 pounds. The title was "How Did I Get So Fat?
Quote:
Sometimes, I think it is necessary to look back in order to move forward. Although no one has ever overtly asked this question of me, it has been implied. “How did you end up this fat?” Well, the truth is, I’ve always been heavy. I weighed almost 10 pounds at birth. There has never been a time in my life when I’ve fallen within a normal weight range for my age and height. I’ve never been able to wear “normal” size clothing. I remember when I was a kid, my mother got all my clothing from Sears Chubby sizes. I’ve got no conception of what it is actually like to not be overweight. When I graduated from high school, I weighed somewhere in the neighborhood of 190 pounds.
Of course, being 30 pounds overweight is a long cry from where I am today at over 120 pounds from the high end of normal for my height. I am certainly a living testament to the notion that obesity runs in families. My mother was morbidly obese. My two sisters are morbidly obese. My brother has struggled with his weight for his adult life and while he is not morbidly obese, he is overweight. So how did all of us get fat? Well, one part is the genetic legacy from my mother’s side of the family. With the tall and skinny exceptions from my maternal grandfather’s side, the rest of the folks tend to be heavy set, with large bone structure and big bellies. Obesity runs rampant in that side of the family although many manage to avoid it until they get older and a few manage not to ever become obese.
That genetic propensity doesn’t explain it all, nor does it justify where I am now looking at those blasted 120 pounds. The biggest reason is that I’ve basically eaten like a pig for my entire life. I grew up in a household where food was an expression of love, a reward and an instrument of comfort. My notions about food are all tied up in that. Feel bad? Eat! Feel good? Eat! Feel really bad? Eat a whole bunch! Overeating became an ingrained habit that got worse as I aged.
Dieting* has never worked for me before. I shan’t go into detail about everything I’ve tried in my life. I will simply say that I failed at every single one**. The longest I’ve ever been able to stick with a diet has been these past few weeks on WW. Each dietary failure resulted in massive feelings of guilt, overwhelming self-disgust and weeks, even months, long eating binges. I also tried increasing my fitness level through various means. All those efforts failed too because I would go at it all drill-sergeant gung-ho, end up hurting myself and quit. Or, like an effort I made at swimming a few years ago, I tried doing it early in the morning. For me, early morning hours are guaranteed failure. I shan’t go into detail about that either, I’ll simply say that I always reach that morning, which becomes every morning, that I can’t get my rear end out of bed.
I finally reached a point in my life where I simply didn’t care to even try anymore. I had made up my mind that I would always being fat and so thhhhhhbbbbbbttttt to all that dieting and fitness nonsense! I’m going to eat whatever I want, whenever I want and as much as I want! So there!
And that attitude, ladies and gentlemen, is how I ended up adding over 50 pounds in three years to a body that was already well over 200 pounds. I was killing myself with food. Out of curiosity, I calculated the WW points for what I was eating on a daily basis. I was averaging over 40 points per meal, over 120 points per day. I have no idea what that translates into for calories and I don’t think really want to know!
I documented in my first blog entry how I ended up on WW. On a routine doctor’s visit, I registered 302 pounds on the scales. What I didn’t say in that entry is that for some time, I had just been feeling physically terrible. I was constantly bloated and stuffed. I was having trouble walking, and not just because of my knee. My sleep was troubled. Mundane house hold chores were becoming increasingly difficult. Not to mention that, well, OK, here comes some TMI, I was having trouble cleaning myself because reaching certain parts of my body had become a strain. Toilet paper on a stick, anyone? Oh and I was wrapped in depression and that sense of I’m a no-good-lousy-excuse for a human being.
So, I joined WW because I had to do something. I’d actually been reading about diets for months and WW always has high ratings and it’s supported by years of experience and weight loss science. Seeing that 302 number on the scale was like a shove on the back that pushed me here. I think it was a shove that I needed. I'm glad I landed here.
*Yes, I know. I’m supposed to consider WW a “lifestyle change” not a diet. Sorry, no can do. Talk to me about how my lifestyle has changed a few years down the road when I meet my goal weight and I’ve maintained it for a good long time. Until then, in my mind, it’s a blasted diet. Albeit one that is actually working.
**Well, that’s not precisely true. I did lose weight once in my life. It’s not a program I would recommend to anyone. It’s called the “Your Life is Garbage So Drink Mass Amounts of Alcohol and Don’t Eat” diet. Fortunately, I was able to get off that particular roller coaster after about a year.
thewalrus0 , 06-13-2013 04:08 AM
alyssarof2012 , 06-13-2013 05:02 AM
vatermelon , 06-14-2013 12:42 AM
newleaf123 , 06-14-2013 08:30 AM
sosurreptitious , 06-14-2013 09:15 PM
Garnet2727 , 06-14-2013 09:32 PM
madelinerose94 , 06-14-2013 10:23 PM
