Hello, everyone, my name is Amy. I created this blog out of a desire to both share my progress with my weight loss and fitness goals, and to rant and rave about things that piss me off in general. I have a personal blog on Livejournal that I’ve been keeping since 2003, which is more intended for those close to me to read about my life. This is more of a public blog. I will be sharing things about my personal life, of course, but I’ll be a little more guarded than I would be on my Livejournal. Furthermore, this blog will be primarily focused on fatness and the getting rid of said fatness, and also issues surrounding the problem of obesity. Since obesity has touched my life, I feel like it has a place in my life and thusly I feel I need a place to share my thoughts about it.
My history with my weight problem:
So for many years (since junior high school) on and off I’ve struggled with my weight. I feel like I’ve finally gotten to a place where it’s going to be permanent. Before, I’d lose weight really fast for an event or (shameful for me to admit) to impress someone I liked. When I was in my teens and early 20’s, I did both healthy and stupid things to lose weight. For the first six months or so of losing a major amount of weight in 2001 (end of my senior year of h.s.) I started exercising and decreasing my portion sizes and eating healthy. Then I got impatient with how long it was taking and started using those jankey gas station Stacker pills and basically speeded all the rest of the weight off. Then I met my most recent ex. We fell in love and got comfy in a steady relationship and moved in together. I was still making efforts to live healthy and had stopped taking the crazy diet pills (I also finally stopped hanging out with the friend who originally got me into the diet pills/stimulant abuse).
I’ve not really opened up about my stimulant use back in the day because I am ashamed of it. I just was too focused on the external and not enough on the internal at that time in my life. I wanted fast results and I didn’t want to be patient. I was also working a few night shifts at my old job and the stimulants helped me stay up all night and perform my job, and the side effect was weight loss. But when I look at pics of myself from that time, I looked thin, but I also had really sallow looking skin, and bags under my eyes. I didn’t look pretty then, I looked strung out. So as soon as I realized the damage I was doing, I quit those things and haven’t gone back.
When I got with my most recent ex, I was thin, but not super thin. He and I got really comfy together, especially after we started living together. He cooked yummy, but decadent food. He is the “naturally thin” type who has the freakishly fast metabolism and can eat large quantities of food without gaining. I knew what healthy food was, but I for some reason was just too distracted and ate his cooking anyway, and started matching his portions. A five foot tall woman should not be eating the same amount as a 6 foot tall man, but I digress…Over 2 years I gained all the weight back. It is not his fault, I am not blaming him. It was just nice to have an s/o cook for me, and I was in love. I didn’t want to turn away his tasty food. It was my fault that I chose to eat large portions and stop my exercise program. I also didn’t assert my needs for healthier fare. He liked the healthier meals I cooked, but it wasn’t until much later that those habits rubbed off on his cooking. I can’t say he didn’t enable me, but I cannot in good conscious blame him or play the victim, either.
He became less attracted to me as a result of my weight gain. Other issues came to play in our relationship as well. One of the major things is that we just didn’t communicate. We’d fight, and then do something band-aid the problem instead of really working on a solution. He didn’t tell me his problems with my weight until a couple of weeks before we broke up. At that time, I didn’t really realize how much weight I’d gained. Sure, my bras had gotten super tight and I couldn’t zip up my pants from 2 years ago, but my denial was intense. I reacted with defense instead of realizing that he was right about that one thing. There are a whole host of issues that led to our breakup, but I can’t say that my weight and his resulting lack of attraction wasn’t one of them. He has since said that he had realized he was enabling me, because now he has a better understanding of how the human body works, and knows that there was no way I could regularly have eaten his cooking without gaining some weight. He also admitted since he wasn’t exactly healthy himself at the time (smoked cigs, ate crappy food, etc) he felt like a hypocrite for bringing it up at all, which is why he held out for so long in telling me how he felt about it. He had vices and faults, but mine showed up in the form of fat, while his remained hidden.
We were broken up but remained friends for about 2 years, and now we’re living together again, as roommates. Hey, we make a good team and we’re good at living together without all that romantic crap. We’re just two people who were better destined to be friends in the long run. I actually feel much closer to him now than when we were an “item.” Go figure!
So the last year + of my life I’ve been working on losing in a healthy and moderate way with no diet pills or anything that I refer to as cheating. It’s all being done the “hard way.” I’ve had ups and downs, temptations I should have resisted but didn’t, and other challenges along the way (namely other people trying to get in my way), but I’ve still managed to lose a huge chunk of fat (46 lbs as of today). I feel gross if I don’t get enough exercise or eat too much/the wrong stuff. I love the feeling of being able to fit into smaller things, having more endurance for physical activity, and having less pain. I turn 26 this January 1st (yeah, I know, New Year’s baby). I’ll be able to really, truly enjoy the last part of my 20’s instead of feeling 10 years older than I am! 🙂
I think there is some part of every fat person, though, who chooses to hang on to the weight. Every “cheat” aside from planned indulgences, every skipped workout aside from being very sick, etc. is a little bit of the fat self wanting to stick around. Why? Because in certain ways it is easier to be fat. In our society, it feels like people expect a little less of fat people. Also, fat can help isolate a person. Less people come up and initiate conversations with a fat person, so if you’re very shy, fat can be a handy shield. Being fat gives a person a handy scapegoat to ignore other issues they may have.
I’m very short (five feet tall exactly), so even a little fat gain looks like painfully a lot on me. When I tell people how much weight I’ve lost, they always insist that I’ve lost more. Probably because in proportion to a taller person, it looks like I have. But, I am always honest about my weight.
Losing weight is only one part of my total goal of self improvement. I’ve just recently started seeing a therapist, and she’s been a great help. I enjoy her blunt honesty and she has a sense of humor, which is very important since a lot of how I cope with things is through humor. She sympathizes to a point, but she never coddles me or tells me I’m a victim. She has helped me make great strides in how I think even just over the last month. I’ve done food journaling in the past on and off, but sometimes I let it get away, forgetting to write everything I eat down because I get busy and it’s kind of inconvenient to stop what I’m doing to write down my food. BUT, anything worth doing is worth doing right, and a food journal keeps me from overeating when I’m forced to remember what I’ve eaten through the day (it can be easy to lose track). So, I’m back to full-time food journaling at her encouragement.
As far as my life outside of fitness and weight loss goes, I am a walking databank of music trivia. I sing, play viola, and can do pretty well on a Djembe drum as well. I like to dance, and I’m interested in learning martial arts. I love anything outdoorsy: camping, hiking, rock climbing, etc. I LOVE to cook, and I have a passion for health foods. I have made culinary miracles happen with health food. I love to draw, paint, and make jewelry as well. All that being said, fitness is one of my many passions, and it’s one I’ve only discovered in the past 2 years. I was never an athletic kid, but now that I’m an adult and can have more freedom in choosing my own activities (instead of having a gym teacher scream at me), I find it rather enjoyable and fulfilling. It’s great stress relief to exercise. I also love to read. I tend to really appreciate the more eccentric fiction writers, and I also like reading educational books about a lot of subjects I find fascinating.
My career goal is to obtain a degree in kinesiology and exercise science and to apply that knowledge towards becoming a certified fitness instructor.
OK, enough of the bio stuff. You all know about me now! My next post will highlight what you may expect from this blog, and what you can definitely count on NOT being included. Ciao!
Amy loses and wins 