Weigh-in

I am happy to report that I've lost 10 pounds since my last update.  Hooray!  It's so nice to see the weight loss and even better to know that I'm back into the 200's again.  I kept telling myself, as the weight was coming back on, Just don't go past 300, please don't go past 300.  When I did, I just had a sinking feeling I would head back to my all-time high of 420 pounds.  This gain has broken my heart, but I do have to say that, in a very weird way, it actually ended up being a blessing for me.  Wait, hear me out on this one ...

When I got down to my lowest weight while doing Optifast (I started at 417 and got down to 227), it was a difficult time for me.  Don't get me wrong, I was super excited that I had lost that much weight.  But it was happening so fast that I just wasn't prepared for how hard it was going to be for me.  The hard part was not about drinking the shakes or exercising.  Those things were almost easy in comparison.  The hard part was about looking in the mirror and not even recognizing my own face, about not knowing my body and how I fit in the world.  All I had ever known was morbid obesity and I was getting closer and closer to finding a normal body.  That scared me. If I was no longer Kathy, the fat/obese/overweight one, then who was I?  I was also having some issues come up from the past that I don't think I properly dealt with at the time.  The biggest one was the ending of my relationship with my ex-boyfriend and being abused, both physically and sexually, when I was younger.

I soon realized, after I got off the shakes and back on to regular food, that it was a temporary reprieve for me.  I was going to have to deal with these feelings or deal with the consequences of what the food does to me.  Feeling so frustrated with all the medical issues going on as well as the physical pain in my body from work injuries and the unexplained chronic leg pain that has been going on for over a year now, I gained a lot of weight back.  A lot of it was the result of various medications that had the side effect of weight gain.  However, some of it was me, just not handling things well.  I'm an emotional eater and I always have been.  This blog has been such a wonderful outlet for me, but when I wasn't writing, then maybe the frustration and the emotions got the better of me.  It was all enough of a catalyst to get me to find the courage somewhere deep inside to finally see a therapist.  In a couple of weeks when I go to see a doctor and the regular therapist I will be having, I know the digging will lead to continued healing, I hope.

It wasn't until I felt the heartbreak of the weight gain that I had enough of a push to seek help.  I'm a very independent person who is great during a crisis.  I handle things in the moment and it isn't until later that it hits me.  I'm sure a lot of that has been conditioning over the years.  When I was a child and was being abused, I handled it to get through each moment, even though I was dying inside.  To the outside world, I was a happy person.  I had lots of little friends and people tended to like me.  They never knew what I was going through when the door was shut and the blinds were drawn.  I handled it, stoically.  And then I went to food.  However, now, I am not willing to just handle it stoically.  I busted my butt with a lot of work when I did Optifiast, not to mention the huge amount of money I paid.  I am NOT about to put back on all the weight I worked hard to lose.  There is just no way on God's green earth I was going to let that happen.  I didn't just drink shakes, I worked my butt off (literally!) to lose that much.  Here I am declaring that it just ain't gonna happen, not on my watch.  That's why all of this has actually been a blessing ... it got me to get up and fight for myself.  Let's face it, no one is going to do the fighting for us, we have to do it for ourselves.

So the weight I am losing now is blood, sweat and tears.  When I was at the gym today, I was working it hard.  Sweat was dripping off my body and instead of focusing in on the pain of my legs, I focused in on the power behind them.  They have had to endure quite a lot in my lifetime, but they haven't given out on me yet.  I was on the treadmill, climbing hills and walking fast, yet I could feel myself standing tall almost doing the stare-down to the fear I had been feeling.  Come on, bring it.  You think you've won?  Oh, I. Don't. Think. So.  I've been knocked down, but I get back up and I fight.  It's what we all have to do ... fight, fight, fight! When I think back through all the things I've been through, I realize I've always been a scrappy little fighter and I'll continue to do that with this weight battle, too.  I refuse, absolutely refuse, to be another sad statistic.