This time last year, I was about 318 pounds. This time last year, my doctor set my target weight loss goal to 185 pounds. I have had that number on a sticky note on my computer for over 8 years. I have always known that was my target weight for my height. I am a tall girl, after all. I have stared at that number almost daily for 8 years. I have wanted to erase it almost daily for eight years because at 318 pounds, that's impossible. That looks defeating and impossible.
This time last year, I was working out 4 times a week, I would consider myself active, but I was very much defeated and struggling with losing weight and gaining the weight back through the years of my life.
For all of us, especially women, we will never be satisfied with our weight. Or our wrinkles. Or our legs. Or our arms. Or hearing our own voice. Or how much we manage to get done in a day. For me, my struggle with weight has always been that obvious physical embarrassment that I could just never get right.
I still find myself getting a little embarrassed when people compliment me and ask how I did it. I still find myself wondering if people thing surgery is the easy way out, or that it's cheating, or that it's not the old fashioned, hard work way to lose weight. But then I remember what the past year has been like for me, and how hard I have fought for myself. How many times I ate one bite of the wrong food and have gotten very sick. How I get painfully tired on random afternoons on random days and struggle to be a human. How running a half marathon kicked my ass WAY harder than I imagined!
Today is a huge day. The scale doesn't get to define me anymore, but it does get to help me track progress. I weighed myself obsessively in the few months right after surgery because the pounds were dropping quickly. Stalls and fluctuations are part of the process, so I slowly stopped weighing myself so often. But today, today I had to check. And there it was.
184.6.
Getting below 200 pounds was a dream. But this day, this day is a victory. The girl that was 318 pounds and afraid of physical touch because of her body and wearing XXXL t-shirts and size 30 pants is now wearing M t-shirts and size 12 pants. Food doesn't get to be the only way I celebrate anymore, or commiserate anymore, or cheer myself up anymore, or relax anymore. God has blessed me indeed, and showed me what it means to accept love and affection and purpose and the big beautiful world that I now feel like I get to be a part of and fit into.
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| What a difference a year makes! |
In two days, I will be 43 years old. This time last year, I felt like life had passed me by, and I was meant to be alone and to accept my lot in life. It's amazing what shame can do to a person. It allowed me to get comfortable and used to a life that was never meant to be lived.
I will keep running. And I will keep fighting. And I will always be grateful and filled with wonder and excitement for what this new life has brought me. Finally addressing my biggest demon, my weight, allowed me to come out from behind my shame, accept love, and give love away. That 318 pound, big personality, lonely girl, is now in love and experiencing the life that I thought I could never have.
And for that, I will keep fighting.
