I really hate being fat!  There.  I said it.  Out loud.  Now that I’m older, it’s worse.  I just can’t move as well as I used to and carrying around this extra weight seems ridiculous!

I have struggled with weight virtually all of my adult life, but have yet to find the reason my body chooses to hang on to every morsel of food, for days it seems, until every tiny little nutrient and fat gram has been stored in my body somewhere.

Most likely I have my dad to thank for his genetic contribution, because I am fairly certain it wasn’t my mother.  Her family was all very small, petite and thin.  I can’t remember any of them that ever had an issue with weight.  My dad’s side of the family, however, was tall, solid, and just plain big boned “good stock.”

I have looked at my weight from a physical perspective, an emotional perspective, and a behavioral perspective and have yet to figure it out.  There are not a lot of answers that I have found that really work for me and it’s just plain frustrating trying to think about diets and food all the time.  I’d rather be out doing something or taking a nap than counting and writing down every bite of food that goes into my mouth.  I’ve tried it all.  Diet, exercise and whatever else is the latest and greatest and the weight still hangs on.  My body must think that I am preparing for the next ice age or something because it just won’t leave and every diet ends in failure and me the same size.

In spite of all the failures, it hasn’t all been in vain.  I have learned a few life lessons along the way…

1) Diets don’t work in the long term.  They are not meant to be used forever, just long enough for you to lose weight then get back to a “normal” pattern of eating and a healthy lifestyle.  Diets give you guidelines to follow in order to lose weight and if you can follow them for any reasonable length of time, the pounds will come off.  When you stop “dieting” is the hardest time because you then need to make a choice.  You can either go back to your old lifestyle that made you fat in the first place, or make a lifelong commitment to eat better, more wholesome and life sustaining food.  (This may be where I’ve failed, because I do love my Cheetos and Diet Coke!)  I heard someone speak at a conference a few years ago who was explaining to the audience that she had lost over 90 pounds in the previous year.  She asked “Do you want to know how?” She said she’d be glad to share.  Man, you could have heard a pin drop in that room!  Her secret, she said?  “Stop eating junk!”

2) Your body is made to move and your muscles need exercise.  Otherwise, as you age, you start noticing a diminished look to the muscles with a few more sags, bags and wrinkles where they weren’t before.  Yes, I speak from personal experience.  What I had is gone and has been replaced with a squishy, gelatin like substance. (This is also known as “fluff”)  Since muscles support a lot of other things in the body, such as bones and tendons, pain creeps in where you never had it before.  So, I’ve taken it upon myself to join as many classes for “those over the age of 50” that can help me find some muscle again, while developing a little stamina, and gain balance.  It’s been working out well, but I feel like I’m in a bad movie scene in an old folks home.  You know the ones where they’re all walking around the room and moving in slow motion but breaking a sweat?  That’s me and all those other “over  50” folks in my class.  I can only laugh because by the time I get home I can hardly walk.  I do it, though, because my body needs it.

3) Our country is getting fatter and sicker every single day due to the poor food choices that we have available to us.  Just hang out at Wal-Mart sometime on a Saturday and you’ll see what I mean.  More and more people are getting heavier and heavier.  It’s almost rare to see someone who looks a normal size.  Sadly, a lot of young kids are included in my observations as well. Most of the choices we find in the stores are forms of processed food.  (No, really, Cheetos and Diet Coke are not food!) There’s  not a lot of “real food” in its natural state anymore.  You really need to read labels and be careful what you are buying.  I try to go with a list and be more conscientious about what I am buying but things still seem to sneak into the cart anyway.  I do try, really, to make the best choice I can.  If I can’t pronounce whatever is on the label, it stays on the shelf. (Well, maybe except for Cheetos)

4) Emotional eating is one of the triggers I have a difficult time with.  When you’re eating due to stress or trauma, sometimes you don’t even realize you are doing it. I developed a pattern of emotional eating at a very early age.  It’s “why” I eat, rather than “what” I eat.  I remember times when I ate a whole cake throughout the course of a day and can’t tell you why, other than it was there, available, and I wasn’t paying attention.  Sometimes I am on auto-pilot and eat to numb myself from pain and stress – whatever pain or stress comes to the surface.  It has been my mode of self-medicating for a very long time.

I have times when I struggle to identify the pain.  It’s rooted so deep that it’s hard to tell what emotion I am even feeling.  It takes a lot of getting silent and digging deep in order for me to figure it out.  I know some of it started when I was a young girl. My mom was pretty much “anti-fat” and condemned anyone who was overweight in her eyes.  She controlled everything I ate when I was around her.  I remember being forced on the “grapefruit diet” with her and my sisters when I was eight years old.  She always made dieting a competition between “us girls.”  The first one to lose ten pounds would be the winner.  Mom always won.  This developed in me a sense of shame around food and my body.  It was very damaging to my self-image.  I wonder what might have happened if she had taught “us girls” how to support each other rather than compete against each other?  I wonder if it would have made a difference in how I feel about my body now?

I remember my first “public shame” around weight.  I was in second grade.  It was time for all the students to get a health check with the school nurse.  We lined up in the hallway to be weighed, measured and have our eyes checked.  As I watched the students in front of me weigh, I realized that I was a lot heavier than most of them (we’re talking ten pounds…remember the solid, heavy genes?)   My mother continued to reinforce that shame during my pre-pubescent phase.  You know, the time when girls normally have a little extra weight?  She would constantly berate me and tell me that “no-one is going to like you if you’re fat” or that you need to have a “flat stomach” for people to like you.  In high school, as I reached my full height, I weighed in at 135 pounds.  Even though that was a pretty average weight and I wore a size 10-12, I was still badgered by my mother.  My non-flat stomach was too big for her eyes. (yes, I am good, solid stock!)  I honestly didn’t know who I was supposed to look like or what I was supposed to be.  I just knew that who I was and what I looked like was not good enough. Ever.

What I learned at an early age is that there is shame in eating and that if I wanted anything good to eat, I had to sneak it so I wouldn’t humiliate or shame my mother.  Yes, I still find some of satisfaction in sneaking food that I know is unhealthy.  It’s like I am still trying get away with it, somehow.  I’m making myself sick trying to make a point to my (now dead) mother that this is my body, my life, and I can do whatever I want with it.

I know that underneath, at the very core, there is a skinny little girl who was hurt and still angry.  A girl who never had a chance to have a voice or a say even when it came to her own body.  Someday that little girl will heal and understand that we only get one chance at having a body and it is our responsibility to care for it by eating right, exercising and making good food choices.  I know she’s in there somewhere and wants to come out and play because that’s what little girls do.

Maybe we should start with a game of hide and seek.  Counting down…ready or not, here I come!