Sipping the Bitterness
Wednesday Weigh-in numbers first: 215, fat% 46.2. Down 1, but still a net gain from 2 weeks ago. I'm having a colassal period, too. I am US Senator Bloatarsky.
So I'm at the Brady Street Artisan Food Festival, watching Plasticland (hence the title of this post) and I'm thinking about that song, Sipping the Bitterness, while I'm thinking about every little thing I ate, and I'm bitter! I'm bitter that its come to this, that I'm fat, and I have to think about each and every thing I put in my mouth because I'm trying to lose weight. I'm bitter because I have to totally retrain myself to feel full when I have had enough, instead of feeling full after I've packed it in. I'm bitter because I let it go for so long, at least 20 years like this. But on the other hand, I've always had to think about this. I've always felt fat, even when I wan't fat. 130 pounds, which is what I weighed in high school, is not fat. But I'm bitter that I thought it was. I'm bitter that I was already matured out that junior-sized pants didn't fit me well, I had to wear "misses" to account for my child-bearing hips, which would have been there if I'd weighed 100 pounds. I'm bitter about the fact that I've never felt comfortable in this skin of mine, even when I wasn't fat. I totally understand teenage girls these days, who think they're fat when in fact they look great, but some underlying "You'll never be thin/good/perfect enough" message has gotten to them. I worry about Stella -- because I certainly didn't get this message from my mother, and I worry that even if I deliver the opposite message, it won't be enough to counteract all the stupid media crap she's going to barraged with. I don't know how I believed this message, but I did. I always thought I was fat. So I sort of gave up and let myself go for some 25 years. And now I am fat and I'm bitter about it.
My head understands all about beginner's mind, and how I have to re-train myself so that eating well and healthy is "the mind that is no mind" but right now I'm bitter that I'm in my mid 40s, and I need to have beginner's mind vis-a-vis eating. Wasn't I suppoed to learn this as a child? My kids eat well. When they're full, they stop. When they need carbs, they eat carbs, when they need protein, they gravitate toward it. When did I stop listening to my body? Why did I stop listening to my body? These are all questions I have to answer if I'm going to ever master this.
When I first started this blog, I did a search for "Weight loss" to find other bloggers I could draw inspiration from. The keyword function at Blogger didn't help. Apparently, a boatload of peole started weight loss blogs in 2004, posted less than a dozen entries, and then blew if off or moved elsewhere. It was kind of disheartening, and was a chief reason I settled on "This Time For Sure" as the title of this. But among some of the blogs I saw, there was one particularly sad one, called "Understand The Dream Is Over." It's gone now, but the url for it was starve_me.blogspot.com, and the tagline was "I will be perfect. Nothing else matters" and her goal was to be something like 100 pounds. In the few posts she had, she'd blogged that she had something like only 600 calories that day, and was beating herself up over it. (Here's her profile. Among her interests was "abercrombie." Ugh. That should explain a lot right there.) I have this hope that there were people in her life who cared about her, saw that blog, and intervened. But there's a part of me that kind of understood where she was coming from. I never succumbed to anorexic or bullemic behavior, but I do remember times in high school when I would beat myself up for going over 1000 calories a day, and this came from reading "respected" books about weight loss. And a lot of it was never feeling good enough, never feeling thin enough, and finally giving up.
And now, I have to log and journal everything I eat so that I teach myself what is "normal." My head knows what is normal, but as I've blogged before, I've forgotten how to listen to my body. I've totally deconditioned my body over the past 25 years. And I'm bitter about it. I can feel good about the fact that for whatever reason, I'm sticking to it this time around, but I've got to figure out a way to get the bitterness out and get on with this business of not being a fat person anymore. And as we all know, being a fat person isn't all just about the weight. It’s a whole persona, and a bitter one at that, that is influencing way too much of my life.
So I'm at the Brady Street Artisan Food Festival, watching Plasticland (hence the title of this post) and I'm thinking about that song, Sipping the Bitterness, while I'm thinking about every little thing I ate, and I'm bitter! I'm bitter that its come to this, that I'm fat, and I have to think about each and every thing I put in my mouth because I'm trying to lose weight. I'm bitter because I have to totally retrain myself to feel full when I have had enough, instead of feeling full after I've packed it in. I'm bitter because I let it go for so long, at least 20 years like this. But on the other hand, I've always had to think about this. I've always felt fat, even when I wan't fat. 130 pounds, which is what I weighed in high school, is not fat. But I'm bitter that I thought it was. I'm bitter that I was already matured out that junior-sized pants didn't fit me well, I had to wear "misses" to account for my child-bearing hips, which would have been there if I'd weighed 100 pounds. I'm bitter about the fact that I've never felt comfortable in this skin of mine, even when I wasn't fat. I totally understand teenage girls these days, who think they're fat when in fact they look great, but some underlying "You'll never be thin/good/perfect enough" message has gotten to them. I worry about Stella -- because I certainly didn't get this message from my mother, and I worry that even if I deliver the opposite message, it won't be enough to counteract all the stupid media crap she's going to barraged with. I don't know how I believed this message, but I did. I always thought I was fat. So I sort of gave up and let myself go for some 25 years. And now I am fat and I'm bitter about it.
My head understands all about beginner's mind, and how I have to re-train myself so that eating well and healthy is "the mind that is no mind" but right now I'm bitter that I'm in my mid 40s, and I need to have beginner's mind vis-a-vis eating. Wasn't I suppoed to learn this as a child? My kids eat well. When they're full, they stop. When they need carbs, they eat carbs, when they need protein, they gravitate toward it. When did I stop listening to my body? Why did I stop listening to my body? These are all questions I have to answer if I'm going to ever master this.
When I first started this blog, I did a search for "Weight loss" to find other bloggers I could draw inspiration from. The keyword function at Blogger didn't help. Apparently, a boatload of peole started weight loss blogs in 2004, posted less than a dozen entries, and then blew if off or moved elsewhere. It was kind of disheartening, and was a chief reason I settled on "This Time For Sure" as the title of this. But among some of the blogs I saw, there was one particularly sad one, called "Understand The Dream Is Over." It's gone now, but the url for it was starve_me.blogspot.com, and the tagline was "I will be perfect. Nothing else matters" and her goal was to be something like 100 pounds. In the few posts she had, she'd blogged that she had something like only 600 calories that day, and was beating herself up over it. (Here's her profile. Among her interests was "abercrombie." Ugh. That should explain a lot right there.) I have this hope that there were people in her life who cared about her, saw that blog, and intervened. But there's a part of me that kind of understood where she was coming from. I never succumbed to anorexic or bullemic behavior, but I do remember times in high school when I would beat myself up for going over 1000 calories a day, and this came from reading "respected" books about weight loss. And a lot of it was never feeling good enough, never feeling thin enough, and finally giving up.
And now, I have to log and journal everything I eat so that I teach myself what is "normal." My head knows what is normal, but as I've blogged before, I've forgotten how to listen to my body. I've totally deconditioned my body over the past 25 years. And I'm bitter about it. I can feel good about the fact that for whatever reason, I'm sticking to it this time around, but I've got to figure out a way to get the bitterness out and get on with this business of not being a fat person anymore. And as we all know, being a fat person isn't all just about the weight. It’s a whole persona, and a bitter one at that, that is influencing way too much of my life.
Comments
Their kids wound up marred as a result. Just the fact that you are cognizant of this & the media's pressure proves that you are off to a good start with messages you send your children.