www.size10chronicles.com

Making progress!

[I wrote this before discovering Diamond Gym when I was planning on getting the LAPBand surgery.]

It’s time to step out of my fat suit!  I’ve been aware of my weight since I was 12 years old.  I remember telling myself then, “By the time I’m 18 I am not going to be fat anymore…and then my life will be perfect.”  Well 18 came and went and I was still heavy.   My weight, and when I look back it was mostly psychological (i.e. I felt “bigger” than most everyone around me and I’d love to get back to my high school weight now, but I also was friends with many tiny Asian American women who are just plain small and even thin I’m not small), did and didn’t hinder me as a young person.
•    Academically, no.  I did well in school and my teachers liked me.
•    Socially, yes and no. I made, and make, friends easily, and my weight didn’t impact my ability to make friends in grade school and junior high school (some of whom I’m still friends with 20 and 30 years later), but looking at it now it may have hindered me somewhat in high school in two ways.
o    First the obvious, I didn’t date in high school.  In some ways I think this is ok, in that I don’t think I was necessarily emotionally ready (as most kids aren’t) to handle anything serious in high school, but I also didn’t get the chance to find out.  I also hung around a lot of kids most of whom didn’t date either, so it wasn’t strange not to be going out with someone.
o    However, I think during the 9th grade when I went to prep school for a year, leaving my old friends behind, I did change emotionally/socially and I think it may be tied somewhat to my being overweight.  I withdrew.  Now prep school was not a friendly place, but I think I felt even more out of place because I was heavy.  I became “aloof”.  I didn’t reach out and try to make friends with people easily.  If someone reaches out to me, I immediately warm up, but I rarely put myself out there and “engage” people.  I think in part this is from my feeling self-conscious about being heavy and I still carry that with me to some degree today.

Going back to my 12 year old revelation about being overweight…my mother told me “Men don’t like fat girls so you should watch it.”  I heard her, but my response was also “Oh yeah?  We’ll see about that!”  This also has had a long impact on my life.  Once I started dating in college, I have rarely been without a man and I haven’t let my overweight hinder my being attached, but it may have affected to whom I was attached.  I dated guys “off campus”, never my classmates and peers.  On the one hand most of my classmates were not attractive to me and the “grown men” off campus were.  On the other hand I suspect there was an issue of “worth or value” of myself (or lack thereof) that affected my “engaging” with my classmates in that way.  Also, I must admit I had plenty of sex that wasn’t connected to relationships in the periods when I was single.  One way or another I proved that men DO like fat girls!

Jump ahead to now:
•    I’m happily married.
•    I’m a mom to a fantastic 2 year old.
•    I’ve got a Ph.D. from Harvard University.
•    I have good friends.
•    I’m financially secure.
•    I enjoy my work.
•    I’m in a spiritually good place.
•    I’m proud of what I’ve accomplished
•    I like myself.
•    And I’m still fat.  A bit less than my top weight which I’ve reached and lost a few times.
o    250 pounds in 1994, up from 190 or so before dating a “formerly (and soon to be again) fat boy”.  Prior to him I was overweight, but proportioned, after him I was just plain fat.  I learned a lot of bad habits from him, most of which I’ve dropped, but the weight still sticks around.
o    Lost 50 pounds in 1997 and 1998.  I went to a nutritionist and worked out 5 or more days a week.  I enjoyed the gym and my time being fit and buffed.  I still had like 25 pounds to lose and so while I was much smaller I still felt a bit fat.
o    Gained it back in 1999 and 2000.  Problem—I can lose it but I’ve been unable to keep it off for long.  Working on my dissertation was sedentary to an extreme.
o    Started work in 2001 back at 250 pounds.
o    Lost it in 2002 by doing Weight Watchers.
o    I kept it off about a week and then started creeping back up.  Met my husband and lost focus on WW.  Was much heavier when we got married than when we met like a year prior.
o    Topped out at 250 again, but this time I was pregnant at least.  I was 227 when I found out I was pregnant and 250 at my son’s birth.
o    I went down to 230 earlier this year and was 238 at my last doctor’s appointment.

IT’S TIME FOR ME TO FINALLY STEP OUT OF MY FAT SUIT!

My primary reasons for wanting to lose weight include:

•    To get this issue resolved once and for all (I understand that even with bariatric surgery there’s still work to be done by me but I think the tool, LapBand, will help)
•    To have an easier ability to exercise—with less weight I can pursue my athletic interests—triathlon and martial arts…it’s too hard now (I’ve participated in one triathlon and 5 k race and trained for both while heavy but it was HARD)
•    To eliminate my health issues (comorbidities)—blood pressure and family history of diabetes, stroke and cancer
•    To see if losing weight affects my life socially…will I reach out to people more?  I’d like to
•    NUMBER ONE REASON—to be able to keep up with my son.  He is 2 years old and very energetic.  He says to me when I’m sitting on the couch “Uppy mommy, get uppy.”  He wants to get up and go outside.  He doesn’t want to sit on the couch with me and I don’t want him to.
o    I want to be able to get up and run around with him
o    I don’t want him to catch my bad habits and become overweight too.