Loving the Fatty: Plan of attack

I have embarked on step 2.  Step 1 involved weeks of fighting that voice in my head and replacing, “I’m so hideously fat I shouldn’t be seen in public” with a mantra of, “Love the Fatty, Love the Fatty… for the love of all things chocolate coated…LOVE THE FATTY“.

Step 2 involves buying clothes that fit.  Up until now I’ve worn my old clothes and covered them with a coat or bought ridiculously baggy clothes to try and hide under.

In measuring myself I discovered something yesterday.  I’m an hourglass!  How the heck did that fact manage to elude me for my entire adult life?  I assumed I was a pear because of all my belly/thigh/bum weight.  I suppose the hourglass is starting to become less defined with the extra weight but its nice to know it’s under there somewhere.  I guess this explains how easily I build muscle in my arms and thighs and why my weight always distributes all over my body (which worked out well 5-7kg’s ago but is getting ridiculous now).

Loving the fatty…

My latest and possibly most important weight loss goal.

Here I am a mere 2 kilograms (4.5 pounds) below my starting weight of 85 kilograms (187 pounds), where I started in January 2009.

Just to illustrate my current chunkiness I’ve weighed this much at the end of a pregnancy (scary, huh!?).  I’ve mentioned over the past few months that I feel burnt out, emotionally drained and disheartened by worrying about and failing at weight loss.  It’s reached a point where I’m at a loss where to go from here.  I’m in a downward spiral and honestly I don’t know if my body will stop gaining weight at a certain point or if I’ll just continue to expand until I’m a bed-ridden 40-something year old who’s so morbidly obese I’m an embarrassment to my kids who feel obliged to grit their teeth and bear visiting with me for birthday’s and Christmas’s.

Over the past few days I’ve come to realise how deep seeded my distaste for myself-as-a-fatty actually is.  I knew I didn’t feel at all attractive whilst heavily overweight.  I knew I started to get embarrassed going out in public at a certain point and avoided it at all costs.  I knew I winced at my reflection as I passed by a mirror, but I don’t think I realised how foul and distasteful I find the fatty me.

Part of the problem comes from my obliviousness when I reached this weight last time (December 2008).  In my mind I wasn’t that big but once I’d started losing the weight the proof of how bad it had gotten was immortalised in all the family photos, ick!   I’ve spent 18 months with this embarrassment boiling at how bad my weight had gotten.  All this time spent feeling  ashamed of how ugly I was and so happy not to be that gross any more.  I hate to think how people must have viewed me during that period in my life, those that had met me when I was smaller and saw me balloon out and those that had only ever known me as “the big lady”.

Here I am now, 2kg’s away from my highest weight and I’m gutted.  It’s overwhelmingly depressing.  I have 4 coats (2 winter weight and 2 spring mac’s) that I’ve been alternating between unable to settle on a most flattering for the school run in the morning and afternoon trying to cover up how big I am.  Every time I leave the house I do my best to hide the rolls of fat around my midsection under a coat and after many changes and adjustments I finally leave thinking my disguise is complete.  I then arrive at school and on my way past the rows of classrooms I glance at the walls of windows and watch myself walk by.  It’s so horrendous I can’t help but look back at myself over and over in horror.

So I’m fat.

In my head I stick out like a sore thumb, a roll of toilet paper dropped in a puddle of water, swollen and hideous next to my “normal” counterparts.

It has become my complete obsession.  It’s all I think about before I leave the house and every second until I arrive back home.  In my mind my weight is who I am.  I don’t see anything else.  I see a fat woman reflected in the glass, nothing more.

I find it so loathsome, it’s almost enough to make me sick.

It can’t be okay to really honestly hate yourself that much based on one single aspect of who you are.

I’ve never done anything dangerous to lose weight in the past.  Atkins is the most drastic diet I ever attempted and compared to diet pills, tummy tucks and liposuction it was pretty tame.

Recently I’ve hit rock bottom and I am certain others have felt the same way.  This feeling of desperation.  Feeling like being fat is the worst thing that could ever have happened to me (not flood, famine, homelessness,terminal illness or the death of a loved one).  I’ve begun feeling like losing weight by whatever means necessary  is the only way I can come up for air.  It feels almost painful to think I have to go on being this person (yes fat being all-encompassing) for even one more day.

Even now I’m on the verge of tears just thinking about who I am right now.  Oh the humiliation of being fat.

I’m not stupid.  I know this isn’t right.  I know I’m being irrational.  I KNOW I shouldn’t feel this way, but trying to explain that to my inner voice is no easy feat.

So in the interest of regaining some sanity I’m going to try something drastic.  I don’t mean anything crazy diet related, no surgeries or pills, no starvation or weird and warped food plans.

My weight loss goal…*gulp*:

• Love the Fatty Me!

Oh I know that sounds so very simple but trust me this one is quite possibly the hardest weight related goal I’ve ever set myself.

To stop this internal monologue of, “I’ll start thinking I’m pretty when I’ve lost the weight“, “I’ll feel worthy of love and affection when I’m not so big“, “I’ll make friends when I’m the person I should be (skinny)”…and just love whatever and whoever I am now.

I’m always looking to the future me.

• The future me that is worth something
• The future me that is loveable
• The future me that will fit in with the rest of the world
• The future me that’s not a joke but a likeable human being

In all this time losing weight, maintaining it for a while, gaining, losing, gaining again I never just let myself be.  I was always looking to a better me that I’m not today and its exhausting.  It’s exhausting not being able to like or love yourself until you’ve reached a goal.  A love note written but not signed.  I’ll love me but just NOT YET.

So anyone else out there who’s hating on their less than perfect body.  Join with me in my fight to LOVE THE FATTY!