Do you ever wonder why ? (queue music for hit show of the early 90's haha)
Seriously I was reading
Howse6977's blog and she had a post about WHY. Why do you want to lose weight. So I got to thinking, hey I should ask myself why do I want this. But it made me think back to a post Susan made on the WW boards a while ago about how she wanted to get to the bottom of WHY she got overweight in the first place to try to help her better understand why she had been struggling with staying OP.
So since I am waiting for my laundry to finish up (yes I am at work doing my laundry because my washer at home is broken) I thought hey what fun would it be to think of my Whys and maybe that will help me beat the winter blahs, stop bingeing (uggh cant stop at all i dont know whats wrong with me this last week) and move forward cus I dont want to be fat anymore!
So here goes the fun!
Why am I
fat?
Well I wasnt always fat! I do know this, however I *thought* I was fat. Ok yes I had some "baby fat" going on but I was not fat or unhealthy!! This is one thing I totally hate about society is how weight and fatness is such a Big deal (haha pun intended). I can remember in the 4th grade that we used to take swimming lessons at the local YMCA through the school. Once a week they would bus us to the Y and we would have our swimming lessons then go back to school to catch the bus to go home. Now this is going to probably break some hearts but I can remember that I needed a new bathing suit and my mom went and got me one and I was all thrilled and 2 of my friends got the same one as me but they had black and I had pink. We somehow got talking about sizes and weight... do not ask me why as 8 and 9 year old kids we were talking about this but we did. Anyway I remember I weighed something like 94 pounds and my friends were saying how they weighed 70 something pounds and clearly you can make the connection 70 ish is 20 some pounds lower than 90 pounds and nobody else weighed near as much as I did so there we have it I was the fat kid. Did I mention that I was probably about 5 fricken feet tall when I was in the 4th grade (My mom used to have to buy me clothes from the petite womens section in elementary school becuasse I was too tall for normal little girls clothes this I also remember clearly!) My mama reads my blog so she will remember buying me short women pants (lol poor Izzy, shes about as tall as I was in elementary school Big puffy heart ya Izzy!)
So yes back to my point no word of a lie I used to think I was fat in elementary school. Ask my mother, I grew fast, I was off the charts when I went to the doctor! But since I was a little kid and didnt know what I know now about health and growing I had no clue that I wasnt fat I just thought that the more you weighed the fatter you were! So thats my heart break story for the day. Ps I had an older brother and he would tease me but you know how it is... kids are cruel, that didnt help convince me I wasnt fat!
I remember still weighing decent numbers through jr high. I remember the summer before high school I went to visit my Aunt in Ontario for the summer and I dont know if I was trying to lose weight or not (I totally remember having home made chocolate milkshakes ALL the flipping time! Not very healthful!) but I remember getting on her scale at her house and I remember seeing 168 pounds on her scale. That summer I lost a bit of weight but it was cus me and Jared were out and about so much. But I do specifically remember the numbers I saw being like 163,165 and 168 I remember weighing that much at 15!! Just a reminder note for my current height 168 is my highest possible healthy weight before overweight so yes I was slightly shorter then... maybe 5'6 (i'm 5'9) but just for a comparison I was pretty much at a healthy weight then.
I dont recall my weight through highschool. However I am currently 189 pounds (well as of last WI I missed mine on monday)and I can fit into pants I wore in my senior year of high school. So my guess is I was probably in the higher 180's range in grade 12.
Now I dont recall what I weighed in my earlier years of jr high but just from the summer after grade 9 to the end of grade 12 I had gained about 20 pounds (based on the fact that I am currently wearing those pin stripe pants I just mentioned) I was never in sports as a kid, I had a wild imagination and when I was little I used to go out and play, I rode my bike places. In jr high high school I didnt have any real extra curriculars other than band and memorial club and they werent really highly active (other than the marching band, hard not to be active when you walk when you play music!) So I am betting on lack of exercising being part of why I got fat!
I dont recall many of my eating habits but I do know that I am one of those people who NEVER ate breakfast!! I know its the "most important meal of the day but I used to be so sick to my stomach first thing in the morning that I could never eat breakfast or I would be ill. Who knows if this had a serious impact on my weight or not, I would probably say yes... my aunt has a theory that my mom is the thinnest of the her and her 2 sisters because she always ate breakfast (always did still always does every single day!) I think part of my sick stomach in the mornings was nerves... once I got to high school I felt HORRIBLE every single day till i got to school... i think I was just so damn nervous to go that it literally made me sick.
On the topic of eating habits I remember many instances of when I would eat more than I needed to just becuase. Who knows if this was hard wired into my brain or what but I do recall eating more than I needed to as a kid even. I always ate really fast that I can remember. I wrote a post before I deleted everything on my blog about how I used to just have sick binges on mcdonalds at 11pm every single day of the week (I think the total was something like 38 points just for my evening meal after eating regular meals throughout the day - I only get 24 points a day at my current weight! At my highest weight I got 26) Which brings me to another point I totally ate when I wasnt hungry every single day!
It is possible that im genetically predispositioned to have these impulses to eat many people in my family have extra weight on! So I dont think I really know how to answer why I would eat so much but I know that when I was out of highschool doing the mcdonalds thing it was a lot to do with being lonely, I had one friend in town everybody else was at univeristy... a lot to do with stress too... I hated my job at the time, then after I quit I was unemployed and depresed. So clearly I know a lot of it is to do with emotions but I dont know how to explain it from when I was young.
I am sure that 2 really big things did contribute to me gaining weight. I watched my best friend die when I was 17 years old and although I knew she was sick and would die well before most people would want for somebody they love, I was expecting it and somewhat prepared. But no matter how prepared you are for a death you cant stop your feelings. I love her very much to this day and I know the after math of her death probably played a role in me gaining weight. A year and a month after Anita passed away, my cousin Jared (the one I spent that summer in Ontario with, I loved him so much, he was a year younger than me, a lot of my childhood memories that I can actually remember involve him!) was killed in a drunk driving accident. That was so much harder than Anita passing away becuase I knew she was ill, losing Jared like that was one of the hardest things thats ever happened to me! Both events really messed me up emotionally. I am sure that food was my friend during that time! From the time I was 17 (about 180-190 pounds) till I was 21 (higest weight 235.5 pounds) I had gained 40-50 pounds... it didnt happen over night and it wasnt by accident. I am sure it was my emotional eating and maybe even filling the voids in my life with food...
Right now I know its becuase of how depressing this winter is. When the temp drops below -25 there is little hope that summer is around the corner! hahaha
Why am I
still fat?
I dont exercise nearly as much as I should. I have always had a problem committing to exercise, I do awesome for a while then I take too long of a break then I am at scratch again.
I still eat when I am not hungry! I also binge. Why do I do this? Somedays I dont know! I would say 95% of the time its emotional. I get the I dont care I give up attitude over whatever is bothering me and I blow it. ANd for anybody whos ever tried to lose weight we all know that when this happens you and blow it you tend to think "Well I ruined this day I will start over tomororow" so you eat like crap for the rest of the day becuase you "can" because you "messed up" your entire day in one meal... so not the case!! And usually, tomorrow doesnt come, or it comes too late when youve dug yourself deeper into the pit you have to climb out of. (But I suppose it is never really too late, it just feels that way)
On a happy note this doesnt happen everysingle day or week, I go through phases that sometimes I cant keep my hands off food... I think we all do this at one point or another
AND
Why do I want to
lose weight? (this is the good one)
-I want to feel good about myself and be comfortable in my own body (nothing hurts more than hating yourself!! I am freaking awesome!! I shouldnt ever feel like that!)
-I want to feel pretty (I totally hate how i look)
-I dont want to get more unhealthy than I already was
-I DO want to be as healthy as I can be (we all have to die from something, but I dont want to die from something I had the ability to control in the first place)
-I want to be a good role model (you never know who is looking up to you for help and guidance)
-I dont want to be scared to do something becuase I think/know I am too big to do it
(West Edmonton Mall - July 2007 - I was too scared to go on a ride in galaxy land with an uber thin friend because I was scared that I was too big and wouldnt be able to go on the ride and would have to suffer the humilation of getting back off to go sit on the side lines so I made up an excuse and insisted she ride alone, ps I did this more than once that day!)
And my most important reason to lose weight
- I want to prove to myself that I am so much more than I ever thought I had to potenial to be. At my highest weight I was really depressed and never thought I would even make it this far ever! If I can go all the way and get to goal and maintain and totally rock my own life then I will prove my fat self wrong. I know in my heart of hearts that I rock (I promise I dont have a big ego!) but I think that I need to do more for myself (such as staying OP and losing weight and feeling better) to be able to have something to be proud of the validate to myself that I am just awesome! Its all about accomplisment, at this point in my life losing weight is one of the biggest things I will have ever done for myself! I have been through a lot but I cant say I have ever really done anything huge for myself. I am a very giving and loving person I will easily do things for others but when I think about it there is not really much I have ever done just for the benefit of me that nobody else could do for me! If I can accomplish this... now thats special!
Now the most important question:
HOW do I fix this?So to sum it all up:
-I GOT fat because I didnt exercise (which is also part of why I am still fat)
-I got fatter becuase I am an emotional eater and I binge eat and I had some big tradgic things happen in my life that would definitely cause me to eat
-I got fat because I didnt know how to take care of myself properly (I honestly believe this, I think that the more you learn about nutrition and proper eating the scarier your old habits become, look at the foods I ate... clearly I knew that they werent healthy but Look at what I let myself do to my body!)
No moving + too much food = Big Fat Ass!
-I am STILL fat becuase I still dont exercise
-I am still fat becuase I still binge
-I am still fat becuase I am not trying hard enough to control myself
-I am still fat because being depressed by winter blahs makes me not want to do anything!
Again No moving + too much food = A big fat ass!
So how do I fix the path that I was on, and am on.
-I NEED to start realizing that a bad day CAN end as a good day. (if you have a bad moment you can only work to make it better!)
-I NEED to exercise and stick with it, exercise keeps you healthy!
-I NEED to learn to control myself when it comes to food
-I NEED to keep my trigger foods out of my house
-I NEED to continue to plan my days, meals, exercise track my points etc
the biggest thing I need to do to continue to lose weight and get to goal
I NEED to try harder and be more strict with myself.
When I get in my "oh I ruined today" mood I dont tell myself to smarten up. If I were more strict with ok that was a bad meal suck it up and get it together for the next meal - maybe then it would be easier to prevent these week long bad eating fits.
Overall the most important thing for me to remember is I have lost 46 pounds. Thats amazing for me considering every time ive ever tried to lose weight before I havent succeeded.
A special note for all of you who have read this entire post,THANK YOU and also I dont think that I have a big fat ass! It is looking much better after 46 pounds! I just am very blunt when I write!
So I guess this is it for now... I feel oddly lighter right now so maybe I really did just need to think about why. Its good to reflect sometimes. Hopefully now I can use what ive learned and discovered today to my advantage to get back on track and get there.
What are YOUR whys?
Till next time
-C
