FatGirl vs World

And yes, I need to buy more Brita Filters b/c I put my last new one in....

July 22 Update:

... is more than just the space around us, but also the people around us.  Are we surrounded by people that will help us move towards our goals (whatever they may be ) or do they distract/divert us from our goals?

I was so nice to see the conference room packed full of people who were ready to hear some truth (not hard truths, not didactic "you must do this" but soft "you're worth doing this...") and to make some changes.

Granted they didn't cancel the ice cream social, but I think more people walked away with a renewed enthusiasm for their weight loss/health gain journey than expected.

I know I found my motivation:
If Bernie can lose 130 lbs, I can surely lose 30.  Whow knows, maybe more.
And I don't have a picture of myself with Rebecca because I have a sneaking suspiscion that I'll be seeing her much more (and she'll be seeing way more of me than I can probably handle, but she'll be armed with a tape measure and some tough love).

my boss just ordered 2 GoWear Fits (one for him, one for his wife) and 2 other people asked me about mine today (summer = short sleeve shirts)

I'm excited to tell people how great this little device is, especially for people who like DATA.
It won't lose the weight for you, but it will make it less of a mystery.

Tomorrow I get to meet Rebecca Scritchfield and Bernie Salazar (at-home winner of The Biggest Loser, Season 5).  I'm kinda jazzed.  I'm hoping it will help reinvigorate me, clear up some questions and get me back on the right track (especially when my own back is not in the right track :( )

Most people who are fat/overweight/obese (and even some people who aren't, like those with body dysmorphic disorders) hate looking at his or herself in a mirror.  They reflect our flaws, they reflect what separates us from how we want to see ourselves.

I have a fun and unique issue with mirrors.  Growing up, my mom would have me lie with my head in her lap, and a bright light shining on my face.  She would proceed to inspect my face -- popping pimples and pushing blackheads (of which I have many).  She would show me the especially large ones and say "good job."  Each session would end up with me scrubbing my face with a hot face cloth.

Though my mom has passed, I have kept up with her perverse sense of grooming, of inspecting (or as my friend in the UK calls it, scrutinizing) my face for flaws.  And it's moved to other places on my body.  I find the errant hairs on my neck.  The ingrown hair in my armpit.  The double-follicle on my leg.  And the perverse thing is that if I perceive a flaw, a blemish, I will dig at it until I bleed.  Gross, right?

Over the past few years one of the areas that has received much of my attention is my abdomen.  I hate it.  I look at it in the mirror and i hate it.  It feels so apart from me, and what I want to look like.  I push and pull the fat in different directions and wonder where I end and it begins.  I try to find where the parasite attaches.  I can't go at my abdomen with a pair of tweezers or a pin and remove the whole thing, but I do find ways to injure it as it has injured me.

It's an anxiety disorder that perpetuates itself.  When I'm stressed out, I tend to break out and find more flaws with my skin, so i feel the need to pick more, and it brings me relief, but then I get scabs and scars that I scrutinize and map with my fingers.  I've had to cover my mirrors.  I've had to sleep with gloves on (or else wake up to a bloody pillow case).

Wow, okay. tangent.  What i really wanted to write here was that when I was scrutinizing my abdomen, I thought about portrayals of fertility goddesses all through ancient cultures.  They all had abdomens/bellies/pooches.  Being fat in some cultures is the epitome of beauty.  So I kinda threw myself away from the bathroom, away from the mirror just hating the society that has shaped my hatred of my own body, of that which makes me feminine.

So i'm just going to promise myself now that I'll try and love my flaws a bit more. Those flaws were made by a person who hurt greatly and needs my love and compassion right now.

For almost every species social learning completes the knowledge instinct does not.  We learn from our parents, our family and friends, our peers, etc.

However, not all of it is good information.

I'm baffled at some of the things I hear.  I am especially curious about some of the things obese people tell each other when it comes to diet and nutrition.  I wonder if normal-weight people would look at me (on the cusp of overweight and obese) and say "What the hell gives her the right to claim any knowledge about being healthy?"


Well just because I have the knowledge doesn't mean I have the willpower.

But I will tell you this:  your fad diet will do nothing for you.  Your cleanse will do nothing for you in the long run.  If you can manage to eat a balanced diet (focusing on plants -- veggies and fruit and shifting away from fats/meats) you will not only be healthy, but if you are overweight/obese, you will lose.

Your fad diet without exercise means very little.  You want lean muscle, right?  (of course you do, muscle burns calories even when you're at rest!!) Well you need to feed it.  What does it need? A variety of nutrients -- proteins and complex carbohydrates.  Those lean muscles you build while exercising will help you maintain your weight loss.

So don't say to me that "All you need to do is eat X all day and you can have anything else you want for dinner."  Especially when that X is something like SlimFast and not nutrient dense/laden enough for people.

A SlimFast shake is roughly 200 calories, right?  My body burns 700+ calories between midnight and 7:30 am.  That 200 calories of nutrients (?) is going to be burned quickly.  So just eat the egg white omlet with spinach and mushrooms, will ya?  Get some Fiber One (half cup) with some berries in it.  It's okay. Your body will thank you for it.

I'm particularly offended by people who think that I choose to be fat.
I'm also offended by people who say "well maybe if you lost a few pounds..."

Maybe if I put my fist in your face....

Obesity and emotions are intricately tied together.

This morning, I had an important realization:  I will never be able to let go of all the emotions tied to my obesity until I confront them head on.  In my case it means confronting my father head on.  I could write out a laundry list of the particulars, throw the kitchen sink at him, and just bury him under the collective weight of his failures (in my eyes), but that just deals with the anger I feel, not the pity, the resentment, or the hurt.  I think those are what keep me fat. 

And either I forgive him silently, deal with this openly, or just continue to stuff the emotions down with each swallow.

Pity:
I feel bad that he never got the chance to deal with his own issues before having a family of his own (and I resent that he didn't deal with any of those issues before he had kids), and that in his mind, his family was so destructive towards the formation of his own identity.

I pity him that he his stubborn to sensitive ratio isn't as high as mine (he might have been able to block out a few more negative voices, just like I did).

I pity that he didn't and doesn't know how to be healthy, and that he doesn't choose to learn.

Resentment:
I resent that he made decisions for me that suited his needs, not mine, and that he continues to do that, despite feeling like he has made huge sacrifices for me. (The biggest of which all surround my mother's death, which is traumatic in and of itself).

I resent that he has a selective/revisionist memory that negates my memories (that my brother corroborates as accurate) and my emotions (which he rubs salt on).

I resent that as a 28 y/o I am more self aware than he is at 60.  I have no feeling of being protected in this world and that's scary.

Hurt:
My whole body is the physical scar of how he injured me (not necessarily by malice, but by ignorance).  I have cavities because he didn't think to take me to the dentist.  He would get on me about being thin but would buy crap food and eat badly in front of me.  When my back was first injured, he didn't make the connection to my mom's back injuries and mine, nor did he think to take me to a doctor to investigate.

It hurts that in order for him to deal with his own issues, he feels the right to be a selfish asshole. And if I'm to be a good, supportive daughter, I'll smile and be accepting.  ((AA has no step for letting people tear you a new one)).


I know I'll have more to add to this list, but this is all I can handle right now.  Just wanted to share.

Nelson Mandela:
"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate; our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.  It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.

We ask ourselves 'who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous?'
Actually, who are you not to be?
Your playing small doesn't serve the world.
There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you.

We were born to make manifest the glory that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it is in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."

[[Edit:  I have just learned that Mandela was quoting someone else in his speech -- Marianne Williamson]]

Link:  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jan-shepherd/the-skinny-on-fear-fat_b_45508.html
by Jan Shepherd

What are you afraid of? Chances are, it's what we're all afraid of: not being loved, not being accepted, not being pretty enough, or smart enough, or desirable enough - the list is too long to ever be Enough!

What's beautiful enough? Perfect enough? Dreamgirl enough?

I think everyone has a bad day.  We all slip up.
These mistakes don't define us, but rather, it is how we pick ourselves up.

That being said, I'm having a time of getting back into things.
Between my back saying "no más" and my grandma being "no más," I've "no más'd" myself into a bit of a funk. It's an endless cycle -- an emotion gets me down, I stop taking care of myself the way I should, I gain weight, eat badly, and then feel depressed about that.

There was literally one day i was so depressed I barely even got out of bed.  On a normal day, I average around 11,000 steps.  On Wednesday, I had 976 steps. My calories consumed has gone up, my activity down, and my alcohol intake up.

In other words, I'm a mess.

Did you know that the only day that doesn't end in "day" is "tomorrow?"