Ugly Betty to Betty Boop #3 - My Story of Weight Loss from the Inside Out

Fat is the modern version of medieval armor.  The more fat we have, the less other people's energies and negativities can get to us.  This may also by why fat people seem to be more "jovial" on the outside than our skinnier equivalents - as fat people, we can be perfectly content in our own inner world no matter what's happening outside of us.  We can choose to put another sugar and cholesterol laden cupcake in our mouth instead of spewing out hateful thoughts and feelings toward others.  A layer of fat is like a force field for any negativity we don't want to experience.  Some of us learn how to deal with negativity early in life, and therefor, never need a layer of protection.  Some of us acquire negativities and sensitivities as we just go about our natural life and encounter other people, who have their own issues, which they project onto us.

What I experienced as a teenager was typical for a girl who had full boobs, a long torso, a small waist, a booty, and long legs.  As I walked down the street, whistles would slide off the tongues of men sitting on the street, and honks would blurt from car horns rolling by.  Men looked me up and down like a piece of meat to be devoured, and as a teenage girl without a strong relationship with her father, I enjoyed every bit of this attention.  Somehow, even though it was a primal and animalistic response like a gorilla grunt and a bird mating call, it served my base need to be validated as beautiful and loved.  It was the attention I hadn't received from the man I had most wanted it from- but I was tall enough and appeared to be strong enough that no one actually dared to mess with me directly.  I was a frickin' Wonder Woman- an Amazonian Goddess with white freckled skin.

Shorts were always too short for my long legs, and therefore, I always appeared to be wearing "short shorts".  Shirts were also too short for my long torso, which was exaggerated by my larger boobs, so there was often a gap between the top of my pants and the bottom of my shirt- baring the keyhole to my body.  To many men, I learned that this was a neon "Hot Now" sign, signaling fresh Krispy Kreme donuts inside.  Unfortunately, this was not at all what I had intended by simply getting dressed each morning, yet it became my daily experience, especially during scorching hot summers in Arizona and sticky humid summers in Michigan, when my only other option was to dehydrate from sweating in long sleeves and long pants.  I traded comfort in my bodily temperature for cat calls, and at the time, I was fine with that.  I was a teenager- fearless with a rock solid ego like a castle wall.

The only time I needed to start developing an armor, was when I met someone I wanted to spend the rest of my life with.  Some people lose their armor when they find the love of their life.  What I didn't realize, was that marriage was about to bring on a battle of epic proportions with the karmic male demons of my past.


   

Ugly Betty to Betty Boop #2 - My Story of Weight Loss from the Inside Out

Being fat is a process, much like being healthy. It's a process of choices that we make every day. For me, that process started somewhere around my 23rd trip around the sun and shortly after becoming engaged to my husband. In many ways, it felt a bit like a switch had been flipped and instead of my body converting food into energy, it was converting food into fat. I didn't feel like I had made drastic changes to my diet or exercise routine, yet my favorite clothes were no longer fitting me and it was becoming harder to shop the clearance rack for a regular size. I always considered myself the person who could eat anything and not gain weight, but a new pound of fat each month was quite clearly telling me otherwise.

[WARNING: Too much information ahead]

Gaining weight wan't my only problem- other changes were happening as well. I started missing periods, I started growing dark hair in places that I hadn't before, my skin started breaking out more, and instead of gaining weight all over, a lot of my weight was ending up around my abdomen. The university nurse practitioner wondered if I suddenly had poly-cycstic ovarian syndrome, but after testing for several of the regular symptoms associated with PCOS and getting negative results, the verdict was inconclusive. Several other doctors and multiple tests later, the results still do not point to signs of PCOS. According to blood tests, I also wasn't diabetic, and even though my thyroid was slightly lower than average, it wasn't low enough to cause a metabolic shut down. By normal medical measures, I was a happy and healthy person. I always had low blood pressure and a healthy heart rate, and I could still crank out 45 minutes of intense cardio whenever I wanted.

My trips to the gym didn't seem to have any affect on the pounds of fat that I wanted to eliminate before getting into a wedding dress. Exercise also wasn't helping me recognize the stranger I started seeing in photographs of myself. If Facebook had been around, I probably would have untagged myself from all photos simply because I didn't recognize myself. That stranger looked like an overweight stunt double version of me, but it certainly didn't look like the Anne I knew and loved. I always had that weird feeling when I looked at pictures of myself, as many people do- the person in photos feeling different from the person in the mirror, but that's easily explained. A picture is how other people see us, a mirror is a reverse image of our body. I knew what that felt like, but this unrecognizable person just looked like an alien to me, not even a reverse image of myself, more like a "Nutty Professor" version of myself.

The more I denied that the overweight stranger in the photos was me, the more weight I gained. My body stopped looking like a chunky hourglass and started looking like a fat person. I no longer felt comfortable showing off my figure and started to wear clothes that hid my best features rather than highlighting them. Shopping became more frustrating as I was no longer able to shop average size racks and had to start looking in the plus sections. Finding clothes that didn't make me feel like an old bag lady became increasingly difficult. I kept putting stakes in the ground when it came to weight gain. The first stake was 200lbs. I decided that if I reached 200lbs, I would start making drastic changes. I'm not even sure when I hit 200lbs, but I have a feeling it was somewhere during a point in time when I was too consumed with work to implement any real changes. The next time I was able to think about my health, the stake was moved to 230lbs. It wasn't until I reached 260lbs that I actually started to take control of my health and make real changes happen.

Ugly Betty to Betty Boop #1 - My Story of Weight Loss from the Inside Out

I wasn't born fat. Well, maybe I was. In baby photos I look a lot like the Michelin Man. I'm pretty sure the creases in my forearm are permanent reminders of where my baby fat rolls were, like an origami fold in life. These "Wrinkles in Time" have been shallower or deeper over the years depending on my weight. Same goes for the ones on my neck, and unless I want to sport the beat poet turtle neck look 24/7 like Diane Keaton, I still have to face those things every morning in the mirror.

I know I wasn't born fat because I lived most of my life not worrying about my weight or ever letting my size bother me. Once puberty hit, I sprouted like a bamboo stalk allowing those baby rolls to finally stretch out, leaving behind only the wrinkled skin reminders. The issues I had to deal with were less of the too-fat-for-the-clearance-rack kind, and more of the too-tall-for-normal-people-size kind. My shorts and skirts were always too short for my long trunk and long legs and my shirts were never long enough or roomy enough to fully cover my long torso and discretely hide my ample boobs.

As a teenager, I had the body that elicited whistles and honks as I walked to the park or the beach. I still didn't feel pretty in the face. In fact, I never felt pretty once puberty hit and my nose, cheeks, and forehead took over my tiny almond eyes. I hated wearing glasses. I just wanted to feel "normal," yet I still looked and behaved more mature than my age. I was 12 and many people thought I was 18. I felt awkward and out of place with other girls. I slouched so I wouldn't feel so tall. I found solace in music and theatre, where everyone was a little awkward, but not in competition with each other- just working together to create art.

Weight didn't become a problem for me until I got married. I'm not blaming marriage or my husband. I'm blaming myself for changing my eating habits to fit another person's dietary needs instead of listening to my body and what it was telling me. Blood tests helped us learn that our bodies metabolize sugar and fat in completely opposite ways. His risks are with sugars and mine are with cholesterol. We didn't find this out until about four years into our marriage. We didn't actually start doing anything about it until eight years into our marriage. Our unhealthy habits were beginning to affect our mood toward each other and our energy levels to do the things we love. I wish we hadn't let it get that bad before deciding we needed change, but sometimes you have to let everything go to shit so you can experience how awful it really is, before you'll get fed up and decide you need to take control and make some tough changes.