Fat Clothes, Fat Minds

I have an enormous walk-in closet. That enormous closet was filled (up until this week) with my “fat clothes”. None of it fit anymore, so it was time to get rid of those old clothes. I bagged up everything – my entire wardrobe stuffed into 5 extra-large lawn and leaf garbage bags.

I wanted to cry as I stood there in my now empty closet, for a number of reasons. One, I had spent a fair amount of money on all my former finery, and that was depressing. Then there was the realization that I had absolutely nothing to wear. My closet is nearly empty (since I am actively losing weight, I’ve been buying only a few things at a time). After cleaning out my closet, everything I own now fits into a single suitcase – even shoes and outerwear. I’m a bag lady. Finally, I indulged a few chuckles and even a silent, teary “wow” when I tried on some of the old stuff – I didn’t realize how much smaller I was until I threw on some old clothes. Even my husband was surprised.

It is clear that I still look the same in my highly self-critical eyes, only smaller. I don’t know what I was expecting from this weight loss; losing weight does not mean that you change as a person. There are no miraculous transformations into supermodels or other fictitious creatures. We are exactly the same, just minus the visceral, puckering, life-sucking fat. This brings up the whole issue of body image and there is where my tears live.

When I weighed 135 pounds, I thought I was fat. I thought that the little pouchy stuff on the sides of my bent knees was fat. I thought that my inner thighs were fat. I thought my arms were fat. I obviously did not approve of my body back then, even though I was actually fit and healthy.

Becoming overweight was just a total fulfillment of how I perceived my body. I made the imagined defects real. Why did I think that losing the weight now would make those ridiculous thoughts disappear? Reaching goal will not be the end of the journey for me. There is much work left to do with regard to my mental, as well as physical, health.

At least I am aware of my negative thoughts, and I am actively working to correct my faulty logic. I so want to be one of those women who strolls the beach, without a care in the world, just enjoying the sunshiny day.

Moving Forward, Always Forward

This is my first blog entry. Ever. Odd, really, that I am just getting to this now, after losing nearly 39 pounds and being within 20 pounds of my official Weight Watchers goal; I just figured that any free time I had should be spent on some kind of physical activity (or at least thinking about physical activity), rather than sitting and writing about the process. My personal free time is very limited, and I tend to save that precious time for very special or otherwise more amusing activities. I am “on task” to a fault. It’s a deep-seated personality trait that has worked to my advantage on my weight-loss journey.

My perspective for “Two Fat Sisters” will be a glimpse into that stage of weight loss when one is nearing goal and beyond to maintenance. Things do tend to slow down and the journey is much more difficult. The beginning of my weight loss was a breeze. I recall saying quite frequently that it was actually “easy”. Not so anymore, people. This is incredibly difficult, but well worth the effort. I am peeling away the ugly layers of my former identity – self-neglect, food addiction, compulsive eating, binging; they fall aside with each pound lost. The real Janet is slowly reemerging as the person I remember before things went wrong – pretty, confident, healthy, and happy.

As I said, I’ve lost nearly 39 pounds as of weigh-in today (38.8). I’ve been a WW member since February 1, 2007, which puts my average weekly weight loss at 1.69 pounds per week. I’ve dealt with a stubborn plateau for the last few weeks, so that weekly weight loss average is down from 2.2 pounds. I don’t fret about the numbers anymore. I used to have a great urgency about this process, but I’ve relaxed a bit in the last few weeks. Why I ever thought this was some kind of race, I’ll never know. Who needs that added stress?

So, I hope that you will check in from time to time to share in my self-improvement expedition. I'll be discussing my day-to-day activities, sharing tips and gripes, successes and misses, but all the while moving forward. Always forward.