The Heavyset Woman

I have been called many a name in my lifetime in regards to my weight. Some childhood non-faves include; Lardo, boom-ba-ba-boom (they would chant this whenever I walked on to the bus), 2-Ton, Fat Ass, Kellie-Belly, Big Bertha. I can recall being humiliated more times than I would care to remember.

Each rotten name brought me back to a place in my mind’s eye where I would curl up into fetal position and cry big ol’ crocadile tears. I prayed to God that he would make me thin like the other girls. I just wanted to be like everyone else. I wanted to wear the same clothes as them, have the same boyfriends, and be that cool, outgoing girl I would always see walking the halls of my school flipping her perfect hair over her shoulders and giggling to her friends. At the height of my Junior High angst, I asked God to kill me. Just get rid of me. I was no good and no one would ever love me. Thankfully, the Lord is good. Otherwise, I would have missed a lot of great stuff and more love than I could have ever imagined!

I had since forgotten those times as they seem as far away as they are. I am a different person today than I was then. I am outgoing even though I am heavy. I am very loved even though I am large. I have many friends even though putting two of them together might add one of me.

But then, then something happened today that made me want to curl up into the fetal position again. I was speaking with an employee over the phone regarding some missing paperwork. I asked him to describe the person he handed the paperwork off to and he said “The heavyset lady. She had blond hair, but I think she was a brunette”. He was referring to me. me. The heavyset lady. Why those words sent me into a depressive state I’ll never know. It’s not even a name-calling type of name. It is merely a descriptive word to describe someone’s body type. That someone is me. Me. The heavyset lady. I just can’t get over it for some reason. Maybe, it’s because I’ve never asked someone to describe me physically before. When someone is referring to me they usually use words that describe my personality (bubbly, cute, sarcastic, fun, etc.). To have someone describe my body-type sent me under cover. Pleasingly plump? Overly curvy? Chubby? Nope. Heavyset.

Heavyset. Isn’t that a word to describe someone much older than I? I’m only 26. I’m still in my mid twenties for heaven’s sake! Although, what was he supposed to say? The ginormous fat chick with the fucked up hair? No. That would’ve been worse. So, heavyset it is, I guess…

My husband and I took the kids on a walk to the park yesterday. We are going to try to walk everyday to improve our physique. We both want to do a body overhaul. We are scared of heart attacks, diabetes, cancer, all the ailments that they say obese people have a greater chance of developing.

We took the camera with us on our park adventure so that we could get some adorable shots of Owen playing and Sophie… not playing but still looking cute.

At one point, Dave turned the camera to me and Soph, sitting in the swing, smiling away. Later on, I took a look at the shots we obtained from the camera. As I went through the pictures my thoughts centered around; Oh… this is a great one of Owen climbing on the monkey bars! Look at Sophie sitting in her baby seat! She’s such a beauty! There’s Owen and my husband at the slides! And then I came to a photo with me, sitting on the swing with Soph. My thoughts then; OmyGod who is that …. That … woman? Who is that large lady on the swing? The one with the tight black t-shirt, double chin and massive stomach hanging down? Oh. That’s me. The woman who looks so tired and a bit dull in the photo? Yeah, that’s me.

At that moment, motivation never hit me so hard. I wanted to run around a hundred blocks just to get back to where I was before. I had reached that pivotal point in one’s weight gain journey where I realized that I went too long down the wrong path of self-destruction. I didn’t even recognize myself and that scared me.

Body Identity: The heavyset woman.

Expectations and Compulsive Over Eating

Last night, I had a rather constructive talk with my husband. For a year or so now I have been feeling like i've fallen into the depths of depression. As a result, I have gained 50 lbs. I started telling him about all of the things I have done in regards to my foodscursions. He looked shocked to say the least.

He didn't realize how depressed and helpless I have felt. I have gone down this path of binge eating to numb my feelings about certain situations. My affair with food has gone from pure to down right sneaky. I sneak food and lie about the amounts I eat. I feel ashamed about my relationship with food. As of right now, I feel very out of control.

The secret I have kept: I am an compulsive overeater or a binge eater. I've been dealing with this for years (Read: Not been dealing with it). I had lost a huge amount of weight back in 2001. I was able to keep it off until I became pregnant in 2003.

After two pregnancies, i've gained 100 lbs from my lowest weight. That's 100 lbs in 4 years which is the equivalent to 25 lbs a year.

I'm not proud of this but I realize that I need to start taking control and move in a positive direction. I need to fix the inside first (not just the outside). I've been doing this for so long that some of my actions are mindless. I don't even think about the food i'm putting in my mouth, whether or not I feel full, etc. It doesn't consciously matter, I just eat.

My husband told me that I need to pull myself together. Ugh. As if I haven't been trying to pull myself together since my son was born! He is right though. I do need to do something.

Truth be told, I am scared. I am scared because i'm not sure how to change my bad habits. I am scared that I will fail. I am scared that life won't be as fun without food.

I think the key to this is to have a daily journal (ala my blog) and to eat less fast-food and more fruit and veggies.

So there you have it. I laid it out on the line. Wish me luck.

Until Next Time,

The Angry Fat Woman

The Wagon Rolled Away

I may have fallen off the wagon.

I think I had managed to hoist one chubby thigh up on the back of the wagon three weeks ago. From my first post and maybe even the second post you can see that I was "motivatedmotivatedmotivated." However, the thigh has since fallen off, the wagon continued on its trail leaving me to eat prairie dust.

I've had a few emotional upsets since my first couple of posts and so of course I instantly run to my food shelter. McDonald's cheeseburgers covering me up like an old friend. Comfort food. Baah!

In my mind I took a look back at all of my foodscursions and visualized a hand taking away the cheeseburgers and fries and finally removing every sweet thing I have eaten in the last three weeks. If that were a reality then I might possibly be down by six pounds by now.

Part of the problem is my lack of planning. Weight Watchers is an organization that has many mottos. One of the mottos is plan to succeed (or something like that). I realize that in my quest to become a better person in addition to becoming a thinner person... I did not think to plan. My meals are left to the wind. Therefore, my instant gratification and eating whims are much better filled by the "no-plan" plan.

I need a plan. Man.

Starting tomorrow (because today is shot to hell already) I will plan to succeed! Hello weekly menus ...goodbye Dollar Menu!

Though I must ask... can you really fall off the proverbial wagon if you were not fully on to begin with? Words to ponder on..

Until Next Time,

The Angry Fat Woman

Having an I Feel *Fat* Day

I feel fat today. To that you might say, “Well, that’s because you are fat and as they say…” I don’t really know what *they* say, hence the … just thought I’d add it in for a dramatic effect.

I would like to squelch a misconceived notion about myself right now. For one thing, not everyday is an “I feel fat” day. Some days, I actually leave my house feeling good about myself. We all have those days when the bounce is in our step. It is on those days that everything seems to go right. Every stitch of hair is in place, great outfit, perfect makeup, teeth look a little brighter than normal and I swear, on those days we all feel 20 pounds lighter!

Today, however, is not one of those days. I am having an “I feel fat” day. I am bloated, my hair is in a messy ponytail and I am wearing an ill-fitting outfit complete with tight jeans and bloated stomach. My rolls are spilling over my pants, I have cramps and quite frankly I am not all that cute today. I’m just a just a blob in a purple shirt and TIGHT maternity pants. Yeah, I said maternity pants. Wanna make something of it?

It is on these days where I feel I need to wear a t-shirt that says, “Don’t fuck wit me. I’m having a “fat day”.

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Get Over It

I was talking to my mom the other day and we happened upon a subject about life paths and the way my brother and I deal with certain things. She said, “I don’t know why you and your brother are so hard on yourselves. You both are too damn hard on yourselves.” I immediately answered, “Well, that’s because you were critical of us and hard on us.” Her response, “Maybe so, but you’re just going to have to get over it.”

I don’t think parents fully realize the damage their harsh words have on kids. I know that if I ever say something harsh to Owen, I see the pain flash in his eyes and remember well, feeling like that when I was younger. In those instances with my son, I retract and apologize to him. I feel that there is no shame in admitting you were wrong to your child.

I can remember instances in my life where my mom would say things like, "Fine eat that. You are going to end up to be as a big as a house." Or "You need to go on a diet. Why don't you do things like x, y, z?" Or "You have a pretty face, you just need to lose about 50 lbs." Or "Once you lose weight, you'll feel better." She always made losing weight sound like it was the answer to all of my problems.

I remember once I was in tears over a comment she made. I had had a particularly bad day at school and she said something harsh in regards to my weight. I told her, "If my own mother doesn't even accept me for the way I am, how do you expect me to accept me or how do you expect other kids to begin to accept me for who I am?" Her words were always counter productive to me because she came off angry. She was always angry.

With Owen, I try building him up rather than tearing him down. My mom and dad were great motivators, but at the same time, they also were great self-esteem destroyers. They will never admit to wrong-doing when it comes to their parenting style. They would argue that we turned out to be good people with our heads on straight. In their defense, I would have to agree. We did turn out to be good people. We have not gone postal to the point of shooting up a Target store nor have we unleashed our anger on a school campus of some kind. However, we do have our problems.

For starters, my brother has panic attacks whenever anything in his life changes. He has a hard time handling emotional upheaval and as a result is on medication for it. He and I have the same need for constant approval. When we don’t get it, then our “vices” start to take hold. My brother doesn’t have a vice really, so that’s probably why he gets the panic attacks. He has nothing to pacify his emotional upheaval moments.

My brother is also handsome, caring, athletic and intelligent. I don’t want or intend to give the wrong impression of him.

Me. Well, we all know what is wrong with me. Food is my vice. I’m a “foodie”. I use food to pacify my own emotional upheavals. I get excited at the prospect of going out to dinner or going anywhere that food is involved. To me, Food=Fun. In my current frame of mind, I don’t have fun without food. Not to mention, I love to eat good food.

Something we both share is that my brother and I have an inherent need for other people's approval. I will 2nd and 3rd guess my decisions just because i'm not sure that everyone will agree with me. I think the critical nature in which my mother has treated us was passed down from her dad and mom. My grandma is quite critical but so was my grandpa.

When my mom tells me that my brother and I just need to “get over it”. I realize that she’s right in the sense that in order for my brother and I to heal and learn to deal with things in a manner that does not cause us to use our vices, we need to fix the inside first. We need to face the things that happened to us in the past and understand them before we can fully begin to greet the future in a healthier state of mind.

So, here I sit, “getting over it”.

And the week goes on...

Mark another hellish week on the calendar. Things are not going so well at work. Things are going so badly that I have actually started to job-hunt.

Nothing is going well here and people are treating me as though I had been diagnosed with leprosy. Of course, they are still angry that I missed 2 days last week. Let them be angry.

Naturally, I have been gorging myself with unhealthy foods in light of the recent situation here at work. I would love to blog about how it feels to be 2 lbs thinner but that just is not going to happen this week. I am probably 2 lbs heavier.

On a positive note, at home, I have learned to squelch my cravings by keeping my mind and hands occupied with other things. While the kids keep me occupied to an extent, I have added cleaning and straightening to my list of “things to do”. Not that cleaning and straightening were kicked off the list to begin with, just a simple re-organization of thoughts.

Productivity at home makes for a happy person on the inside.

Now, I need figure out a way to combat the annoying feelings of worthlessness and anger at work. This seems to be one of my bigger hurdles at this time. I need to find something productive to do to keep me from stuffing my face with McDonalds or Wendys. I realize that this is not a hunger impulse because yesterday I wasn’t even feeling hungry when I bought lunch. I was hitting the FF (fast food) for reasons other than hunger. Mostly I did this out of boredom and routine I think. Feeding my face also helped to pacify the feelings I have about my current situation.

Getting healthier and losing weight is not an easy task. Many emotions and bad habits have built up over the years making it a difficult goal at best. However, I realize that I am not the only person who struggles with this and so I know that losing weight even under these circumstances is not impossible just challenging.

We all have our crosses to bear, right?

Until Next Time,

The Angry Fat Woman

At Last! Friday

This has been a hellish sort of week. Things are not going well at work and both of my kids are sick.

Things are not going well at work because I stayed home with my sick kids. My poor babies have been sick 6 times since January 31^st.

While, I cannot blame my employer for feeling less-than-happy with me, this situation is not something that is avoidable. Kids get sick. Plain and simple.

Obviously, with my need for validation my insides feel upside down over this situation. It almost makes me want to go to the depression corner in my mind. The same corner where I say “No one loves me.” “I am worthless.” “I cannot breathe.”

However, I’m not going to go to that corner. I have enough people in my life to validate me. Yes, that is the problem isn’t it? I have an inherent need for validation from others. It’s not enough for me to say that I believe in myself… it’s what others believe that matters most. This holds the most importance for me.

I base and have always based feeling good about myself only when others approve. It’s not that I am unaware of who I am. Obviously, to pull these self-truths out and be able to write about them shows some measure of self-awareness.

Self-awareness aside, how do I change this?

I have started to tell myself 1 good thing about me per day. Today, my good thought is that I am a good mom.

I feel that I am an empath when it comes to dealing with people. I naturally seem to feed off other people’s emotions. If my husband is having a bad day then I too am having a bad day. It’s hard for me to separate the feelings sometimes. It gets to the point where I have a hard time being in big crowds because the feelings fly at me all at once at an alarming rate of speed. This seems to happen when I am in an especially introspective mood. My “people-awareness” heightens to the point of where I find myself absorbing the feelings.

I can feel my boss’s obvious distaste for me right now. I can feel it so strong that it makes me want to up and quit. I’m not about to kiss her ass for something I don’t feel I did wrong. I am stubborn like that. Still, I don’t like the feel of hostility or unrest. I am hoping that she will take the weekend to get over it. Doubtful.

While this entry doesn’t have a whole lot to do with food, it does touch on an important subject for me that I believe is one big factor in my need to pacify my feelings. If I could find validation within myself, then I believe I wouldn’t slay my feelings for the moment with something greasy or sweet.

Have a great weekend!

Until Next Time,

The Angry Fat Woman

Better Choices

One thing I’ve come to realize (again) about weight loss success is that it all comes down to having a good mentality that will then enable me to make better choices. In the short time, I have had this blog; I have begun to see a pattern with my binges and bad choices. If I have a bad day, I make a bad choice.

Last night I had a pivotal moment in controlling my bad karma. Here’s the situation:

I came home from work in a semi-rotten mood. People were mad at me for missing two days because of sick kids and I was waiting for the other shoe to drop (get called out by my supervisor in other words). The shoe didn’t drop all day and this left me feeling tense and angry inside. On my lunch hour, I made a bad food choice and binged at McDs. I felt even worse after eating the garbage but for a brief moment, it had the ability to pacify my feelings of worthlessness.

Therefore, when I got home that evening, I was ready to cry or yell – whichever emotion happened to hit me first. I remember sitting on the short couch talking to my husband about my day. I noticed he seemed a bit uninterested. At the time, I felt like he was dismissing me, now I realize that his facial expressions and body movements were liken to the fact that he couldn’t fix it and felt frustrated for me.

I *ALMOST* lit in to him. I *ALMOST* said, “Well, geez, it seems like you just don’t care whether or not I’ve had a bad day. Guess I’ll quit talking now.” Thank God, I didn’t go there!

Instead, I stopped myself and realized that I needed somewhere else to place my energy. I had two choices at that moment, I could either, sit on the short couch and bitch, OR I could be productive.

As it turned out, I chose the latter and washed the hallway, bedroom & bathroom walls. After I was done with my task, I had forgotten all about my anxiety-ridden moment. My husband asked me what I wanted for dinner and I made a better choice.

When I lost a tremendous amount of weight the first time, I realize now that I didn’t take the time to fix the inside. I tried to fix it but threw myself into exercise instead.

Now, I am trying to change things little by little and it feels productive albeit slow. I need to realize that I will not receive instant gratification with my weight loss journey. I will however, receive little gratifications along the way that arrive in forms of feeling better about myself, fitting into new clothes, watching my double chin disappear, and finally the absence of camel toe.

Today I ate:

Half a cake donut (complete with frosting and sprinkles): 5 pts

Weight Watchers Meal: 6 pts

Total so far: 11 points

WOOOHOO!

Until next time,

The Angry Fat Woman

Being Honest

It's hard for me to write in this blog without being completely honest.

I have decided to start writing everything down that I eat and so as to figure out why, i've also decided to write the feelings I had when I made that choice.

Today's Meals:

Breakfast: Nothing
Snack: Nothing
Lunch: McDonald's #1 (Big Mac, Fries, Diet Coke) Large & a cheeseburger
Snack: Nothing
Dinner: Not sure

Points so far:

Big Mac = 13
Cheeseburger = 7
French Fries = 14
Diet Coke = 0

Lunch Total = 34

Wow. I'm not sure how many WW points I can have yet, though i'm sure 34 isn't the number.

Why did I make this choice? How was I feeling at the time?

Today is my first day back to work. I was off with sick babies for the past 2 days. I got the cold shoulder from everyone. My boss and others went out to lunch leaving me by myself. This has been happening on a weekly if not daily basis. I feel left-out and not wanted.

Things I have to realize: It's a small office. So, while they are understanding to a point about me being off with the kids, it doesn't make it any better as other people have to pick up the slack.

Other Things to realize: I am starting my own daycare this coming winter and will have to "ride it out" until then. Even if I don't start my own daycare, I need to be the best employee I can be.

Life Outside of Work:

My husband and I have been going through tense times. I feel like I am a failure. I don't feel "good enough" for him. These feelings have been pouring out onto our relationship. The way I feel about myself is largely to blame for the way I feel about our relationship. Honestly, if I felt positive about my body, then I think my outlook on my relationship would be more positive.

Things I have to realize: My husband loves me the way I am. He is my biggest fan and will not leave me. He loves me and our relationship and when he married me, he planned to spend the rest of his life with me. I need to get this into my brain and quit accusing him of things he hasn't done or even thought of doing. I need to let go of the self-doubt and start living like today is my last day.

Other things to realize: I need to keep the lines of communication open with my husband. I need to tell him that he does a great job! I need to incorporate more positive energy into our household!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

3 Goals to accomplish this next week:

1. Start appreciating my husband more and not let my self-esteem issues get in the way.
2. If I feel the need to go to McDonald's (or any fast food joint) grab a salad or something healthier. 2 cheeseburgers is 14 points and a salad with dressing is 10 points.
3. Tell myself one good thing about me every day.

Until Next Time,

The Angry Fat Woman

MILF in the making...

I'm done having babies... and camel toe.

It's not easy being a mom of 2, wife of 1, an employee and a college student. Yet, here I am walking the walk and talking the talk. I've been trying to relish in the fact that i'm busting out each of my goals one by one. Yet, I am tired on this journey. My feet are dragging, i'm irritable, not fun and quite frankly i've reached the point of no return. Either i'm going to have a heart attack or a breakdown.

I've been heavy for most of my life. I weighed 110 lbs in 5th grade. From there, I went on to gain 115 lbs and in my senior year tipped the scales at 225. I lost weight in 2002 and was at my lowest weight of 169. From that point, I met my husband, got married and had two babies. I am ashamed to say that I gained 105 lbs in a matter of 5 years. I now weigh 275.

So many things happened between the end of high school and the beginning of my college years, working young-adult life, to now. I believe in order to get to the thinner me I desire, I will need to wade through ALL OF IT.

I am making this diary public. Anyone can read it. Maybe it will give someone hope and inspiration. Maybe it will give someone a reason to be happy about their lives - in the "At least I don't look like her" sense. Maybe, it will give someone something to do on lunch hour.

In any case, welcome to my blog.

Until Next Time,

The Angry Fat Woman