I've been over 200 pounds for most of my adult life and I really thought I was never going to lose weight - though I was desperate to do so. Being fat has occupied more of my waking thoughts than just about anything else in my life for the last 10 or so years. I used to walk into a room and immediately "size up" everyone there to see if I was the biggest. I used to wonder what it was like to not always be thinking about being a big girl and how badly I wanted to be thinner - not even thin, just not fat.
I wasn't always fat. In fact, I was downright skinny back in the day. The fact that I gained weight after those formative high school years led to an interesting dichotomy in my body dysmorphia, one where I would feel so fat and ashamed of myself sometimes and other times like I wasn't overweight at all. The latter definitely contributed to me not losing weight before now. I mean, why not have that 3rd slice of cake? I'm not that fat, right?
While losing weight has been a very positive journey for me, my brain still hasn't caught up. For instance, I have no idea what size I am anymore. I don't mean this just in terms of clothing, just in general. There are days when I feel just as fat as my biggest day and sometimes just walking by a full-length mirror can be a jarring experience. I no longer walk into a room and determine who the biggest person is. I don't feel panicked wondering if the the armrests of a chair are going to dig into my sides. There are just all of these things that, after a DECADE of anxious thoughts, just don't exist anymore.
The unfortunate part about the my brain is that all of these anxious thoughts have just been replaced by new anxious thoughts. When people ask how much weight I've lost and I tell them 50 pounds, they are always astonished and for a moment, I'm damn proud of myself. Unfortunately, on the heels of that pride sits disbelief; it feels like I'm telling a lie because even I don't believe it. It's as if, behind it all, I still feel like I will fail or one day I will just wake up and those 50 pounds will be right back on my ass.
As of today, I still have another 50 pounds I would like to lose and it's just as daunting as the first 50. Some days it feels like I'm just hitting the reset button. I still feel fat, just a new version. I still get as upset about the areas of my body I hate and how they look when I've tried on something too small in the dressing room and how I feel like I will never get to where I want to be with myself. I honestly had no idea that teaching my brain to lose weight would be as hard as teaching my body, but I'm learning.
