The Beginning

This is the beginning of what will hopefully be my successful battle with controlling my weight and myself. I have struggled with my weight my entire life and I have been successful before. However, I have never been able to keep the weight off for good. I think that part of the problem has been my lack of self-honesty and especially in thinking that once I lost the weight all the hard work was over. So now, here I am, about to start again and I needed to do something different this time. Doing the same things over and over has not really been working for me so here is something new. An awesome friend of mine had this idea and I thought that it might work for me as well (http://losingit-findingme.blogspot.com). This is something that I will be sending to my friends and family as a way to keep me accountable. It is very easy to tell yourself that if no one really knows that you are losing weight than if you stop dieting and exercising, it is really no big deal. I am hoping that this time, I can stick with it and change my life in the process. So to begin, I guess I should start with one of the hard parts which is putting up my weight, goal, and timeframe. While I am feeling brave, I am also going to post my measurements so that I can track those as well. So, here it goes:

Current weight: 278 lbs (this is sadly not the biggest I have been but very, very close)
Goal weight: 155-160 lbs (this may change the closer I get to my goal weight to see what is reasonable)
Goal Timeline: Lose an average of 8 lbs/month which is 2 lbs/week
This puts me at about 15-16 months, so by next Christmas.

Current measurements:
Bust: 50 "
Arm: 17.25 "
Waist: 55"
Hips: 58.5"
Leg: 33"


Yikes! My plan is to start counting weight watchers points again. I am going to try and get in at least 20-30 minutes of exercise every day. Now to be realistic, in the beginning, it is going to be a very big struggle to make sure that I get in that exercise every day but I am committed to trying!


Now to the other part of the blog. I am going to use this to try and dish a little self-honesty because lying to myself has obviously not been working for me. I really do not have a life altering reason for choosing to do this now other than it is just time for a change. I have grown accustomed to looking at myself in the mirror from the waist up and ignoring myself from the waist down. I have always put on the weight in my upper body slower than my lower body. I think I had been very much a pear for most of my life. I am definitely an apple now though. I think this allowed me to ignore just how big I was getting. I usually figured that I just had trouble finding pants that looked really good on me but at least I could find shirts. I have now hit the point where I can't ignore it anymore. I see it in my face and that has been the most depressing place of all.

For a long time I have just dismissed bad pictures of myself as "just a bad angle" but I really cannot do that anymore. Something that has been kind of hard for me lately is family photos. Most of the members of my family have struggled at one point or another with being overweight but now have it pretty much under control. Most of my family are in shape and on the thinner side. My mom sometimes says otherwise but she is thin :) I am now embarrassed when I look at our family photos because I am the fat one. It has gotten to the point for me sometimes that I feel like I don't fit into those pictures. This is an issue that has always been the root of my low self-esteem and low self-worth. As much as I try to act like I am ok with the way I look, and consequently the way I am, I am not. I am an embarrassment to myself. This is something that I do not readily admit to most people. I think that it is also why when I do try to lose weight I try to keep it from most people. I tell a few people what I am doing but I am embarrassed to say it aloud to everyone else, like my co-workers. I feel like it is admitting to everyone that yes I am fat and yes I also do not like the way I look. That is what I am trying to change here. This is a public blog and I am sharing it with people that I know will be supportive and help me. I should be proud of what I am trying to do and not linger on the embarrassment of how I let it get this far.

Another deciding factor for me is that I need to get in shape. I am a TA and that means that I have to proctor exams. Nothing is more embarrassing than not being able to get to the student in the middle of the row without knocking into someone else with my belly. I am lucky that I do not have classes in any auditoriums because I would barely be able to fit in the seats. When I do fit in, I usually cannot pull the little desk surface all the way down so I usually just take notes on my knee and pretend like that is the most comfortable position for me. I also want to be able to make it up one flight of stairs without losing my breath. I had a class that I had to TA for last semester that was on the other side of campus and on the second floor. Winters here are really cold but I would still have beads of sweat by the time I got to class. I would also have to pause outside of the door to catch my breath so that none of the students saw that I was breathing heavily from one flight of stairs.

I have always been afraid of change and I think that I have been hiding behind my fat girl persona for too long. This is what has been safe for me but it is also what has been hurting me. My weight has always been a sensitive issue for me and it doesn't take much for me to be hurt by some comments that colleagues might make about fat people in general. I always end up thinking that they must be thinking about me when they say that. I am tired of being told that I have a pretty face and would like to just be considered as pretty, completely. The biggest thing is that I want to take pride in myself. I am not proud of myself. Letting myself stay this way for so long has really taken a toll of my self-esteem and I have found recently that I really do not value myself highly. I have always thought that people who derive all their self-esteem from how they look were vain but I know that it at least begins there. And I know that if I do not value myself, how can I expect anyone else to do the same? If I do not think that I am worth it, no one else will either. This is why the biggest battle for me is going to be combating all of the thoughts and attitudes that I hold currently. My worst enemy is myself.

I am one of those people who always start things really well but lack follow through. I am not as good at finishing what I have started. I think that my struggle with my weight is just my biggest example of that. This is why this is not just about losing weight but about becoming the me that I want to be. I need to shock myself into motion, to take charge of my life and stop being such a passive force in my life. The first part of that is making sure that I make time for me. The biggest excuse that I use (and I use it all of the time) is that I do not have time. I have always thought it was because I was really busy. Working full time and going to school full time, then working two jobs but now I am in grad school. I have more free time than I have ever had in the past and nothing has changed. Nothing has changed because I have not made a change. My mom had pointed this out to me before I left for grad school and it is one of those things that I have been able to lie to myself about for a long time. I can make the time, I have just chosen not to.

This blog will not always be so gloomy but I had to admit those things to myself before I can move on and make a change in my life. And I do have to change. That is the only way that I will succeed. It will not just be following a diet and trying to stick to an exercise routine but instead I have to change the way that I think about food and exercise. I have to change my response to stress and depression and find another outlet instead of food. I know this is going to be really hard for me but I know that I have to do it if I am going to really enjoy my life and be happy with myself. So, here we go. I am starting today. I have already starting tracking for today. I will post my weight weekly and I will post my measurements monthly. I will try to post in between those times with some of the struggles and successes that I encounter. And in advance to those who know who I am talking to, thank you for your love, support and encouragement. And please, don't let me off lightly if I start to falter.

So here we go, to what will hopefully be the beginning of the new me.