I don't look in the mirror anymore. I avoid my reflection in glass doors and mirrors. I hold my head down, slanted to the left whenever I am confronted with one. Recently, in a yoga class, the instructor prompted us to look at ourselves in the mirrors to help us do the poses correctly. Obligingly I looked and I was startled. The image that I had of myself didn't match the one in the mirror. Even though I know my weight, I still thought I only looked slightly overweight. The instructor saw the disgust in my face and told us to not look in the mirror if it doesn't help our practice.
Today is my 36th birthday. I have been overweight since I was nine years old. That is 25 years. I was first alerted to the problem when I was in fourth grade. In my rural colorado school they would march all 8 of the grade 3-5 students down to the utility room and weigh us twice a year. One student would get on the scale and the teacher would call out the weight....68 pounds, 72 pounds...etc. When it was my turn she whispered in my ear, "92 pounds."
I remember my Grandma and my Aunts looking at me with a similar disgust. One asked me what I liked to eat. I said, "spaghetti, mashed potatoes and ice cream." She told me that was why I was fat. I was 9. It is pointless to be upset now, but I wonder why instead a criticizing me, she could have taught me how to eat in a more balanced manner and combine it with exercise. Maybe she didn't know then either. She only knew how to starve herself by limiting her daily food intake to a handful of almonds and a 6 pack of diet caffeine free coke.
One time one of my crazy step moms actually helped me lose weight. I was eleven and 150 pounds. She took me to a counselor so I could talk to her about why I eat so much. The drive from our house to the counselors house was an hour long. On the way she talked to me and said she wanted to know why I snuck to the cabinets to eat more food at night. She wanted to know if I was an emotional eater. So when the counselor asked me why I over ate I dutifully repeated all the things my step mom said to me. "I eat lots of food because I am an emotional eater." I didn't even know what I was saying, but the whole counseling things was weird to me and I thought that was what Marty (my step mom) wanted me to say, so I did it. After this ground shaking revelation, the counselor then Marty come in broke the news to he, to which Marty exclaimed that she felt like she had a weight lifted from her chest with this news. I just sat there amazed at the ridiculousness of the situation, but thinking this is how adults acted.
The counselor asked me what is one thing I would like that would help me to be healthy. I said a bike. We set up this deal that if I lost 10 pounds I would get a bike. Why a counselor was needed for this I don't know, but there it is.
Marty and I drove home. For weeks she would serve me plates of food with significantly less food on it than others and she would limit my cookies to one a day. She called the school and made sure I only was allowed one serving at lunch. The weight did indeed come off. Then Marty loaded up the new van my dad had bought her one day and drove out of town. I remember watching it go by from the school yard. The bike was forgotten about until my Grandma and Granddad kept the deal on behalf of her.
I was thrilled. I had done it! I was down to 140 pounds. I would never have to worry about losing weight again and Marty was no longer around to police my eating. I went to school that first day and ate 3 caramello bars that first day all the while proclaiming to the ladies at the candy counter that I had lost 10 pounds. I weighed 200 pounds by the time I was 15.
In my junior year of high school, I accidently lost weight. I was placed in a foster home and didn't have money anymore money to buy a king sized snickers bar and a mountain dew for lunch every day. Instead I would pack a lunch from home and drink lots of water. I also started walking everyday.
It wasn't for my health, it was to walk by the cute boy's house who lived a mile from mine with hopes that he might be outside playing basketball right when i passed by and, so it didn't look like I specifically went on a walk to go by his house, I continued to go around the loop. By the time I got home from the outing, I was walking 5 miles a day. I started running just so this endeavor wouldn't take up so much of the day. The cute boy never noticed me.
I lost over 40 pounds and it wasn't stressful. I was simply eating normal, healthy food. My grandma was concerned at how frequently I was going to the bathroom because of all the water I was drinking and asked me if I was throwing up my food. I said no, shocked. This unfortunately gave me ideas for later on in life. I finished high school on a weight low, the only time I was a lesser weight than my older sister. I relished this fact at the time.
Then I started college and got a job in a ice cream shop. Ooops.
A year later I transferred schools, received a talking too about my weight from another Aunt and the aggresively started trying to lose weight. I would wake up at 4:30. Go to the gym for and hour and a half. Get ready for work and work a job from 8-5. Then I would go to night school at the community college and get home by 10:30. I woke up at 4:30 again the next day and did it again. I lost 20 pounds and I was always obsessed with my weight. Going to the scale every morning and feeling like a success for the day if the scale went the right way and a failure if it didn't and would self medicate with mountain dew and snickers bars.
My lowest adult weight was 163 pounds. I thought I was fat. I have continued the pattern I was on in college. The only time I really was succesful at weight loss was when I wasn't consumed by it. Eating healthy was the only option and exercise was fun and social. I hope to repeat this for myself and to be a good example to my kids.
