What a Difference

What a difference a few months can make. When you become so bogged down by self-doubt, by poor eating habits and constant lethargy, you start to feel like this is all there is. It's hard to see a way out of the tunnel.

As I posted right before Thanksgiving, I was feeling so stuck, so miserable. I thought I was trying really hard to maintain a healthy eating regime, an exercise routine but I wasn't seeing the results I wanted as quickly as I wanted. I was headed to LA to visit my girlfriend and I was sick with anxiety and self-deprecation. I wasn't excited, I was worried about how I looked.

I hated feeling that way. I wanted to be looking forward to seeing her and basking in the sunshine but all I could think about was, "What if we go to the beach? How am I going to avoid being in my bathing suit?" It was such a waste of energy, especially because once I got there and I saw my girlfriend and we had fun bashing around town, those anxieties slipped away. I still wasn't happy with my body but I was not thinking about it every moment, like I was right before I left.

I'm headed to LA again in four days and I have to tell you, I feel differently now. I'm still not where I want to be physically and am still frustrated by that fact and still step on my scale far more often I should because it only leaves me frustrated. BUT, I feel like something has shifted emotionally and mentally. I'm less focused on weight now. Not because I'm happy to be 164 pounds because I'm not.

I'm realizing that I am really healthy. I eat whole foods, I make exercise a priority, I take lots of supplements to ensure optimal health, I cook my own food 90% of the time. I am healthy. I feel far more energetic, focused, CONTENT than I have ever been. I know that it's in part due to cutting out all of the refined foods that were bogging my body down. Pure fact: you operate far better when you are putting in high-quality foods.

Mentally, I'm also starting to realize that I am more than this body. I want to take care of it because I want to live as long and well as possible. But I'm extricating my self-image from my physical form. I've held myself back from feeling and exploring and learning so many things because I thought as a fat person, I couldn't or shouldn't expect certain things. What a life I have missed living simply because I was overweight. Because I saw myself almost exclusively defined as being overweight.

Fat people shouldn't expect very many people to hit on them or want to date them for very long. Fat people shouldn't expect to excel at sports and shouldn't even try because they will look ridiculous. Fat people shouldn't engage in fun, physical activities with their friends, like ice skating on a pond in the winter or rollerblading on the boardwalk at the beach in the summer. When cute, thin women fall while ice skating, it's cute and silly. When fat women do it, they just look fat.

I'm not exaggerating. This is exactly how I have thought my whole life. I really wish I were a better ice skater and would love to hold hands with the person I'm dating and skate for one hour each winter. That's it! But I'm not very good and I'm so afraid that if I fall, I won't look cute and silly, I'll look like a fat person who fell. It's sad even articulating this but I know other people must feel/have felt this same way.

I'm not perfectly content yet. I might never go ice skating. But I'm EXCITED to go to LA. I'm EXCITED to see my girlfriend and to hang out on the beach and to maybe go bike riding in her neighborhood. Not because I've found the magic cure to self-acceptance but simply because I've been able to sustain a HEALTHY lifestyle for months and months now. My focus is shifting from weight to just being healthy, just being happy.

What a difference a few months can make.