Saturday, January 12, 2008

Did anyone see a wagon going by?

Because I fell off of one recently and should probably find it and hop back on.

Which brings me to something I've been pondering in the past few days as my hand automatically reaches for crap I shouldn't eat and my brain does absolutely nothing to stop the process. Why do we sabotage ourselves? Why is it the second I start to hear, "You look fantastic!" "You're definitely losing weight!", and I start to not loathe pictures of myself, I feel the need to open the fridge and begin to eat. Why is that?

It happens all. the. time.

The past week or two have been a bit of a free fall for me. Not that I have been surrounding myself with piles of Krispy Kremes and eating my way through them. I'm not driving-thru Taco Bell ordering 15 chalupas and choco-tacos. I don't do stuff like that. Ever. I don't eat shitty crap foods like that. I eat relatively healthy foods; sadly, just too much of it. And in the past week or so, I've not really done anything to check myself.

"But, FatSarah," you say. "You were going to start writing down everything you ate. You said so just the other day. It's been over a week. You should have over a week's worth of food journals! What happened?!"

What happened was I wrote down breakfast that first day. Then I snuck a few bites of Ethan's lunch, along with my own lunch. Then I mindlessly popped a few of his Goldfish that afternoon. Then I was too tired to cook so we had take-out Thai that night. At the end of the day, I couldn't face the long list of "you should know betters" that would have been staring back at me had I written it all down.

So I have that first breakfast, and then I have today's breakfast. Because I might still eat like crap here and there, but I have to hold myself accountable more. I know that. And I don't know why I'm afraid to do it.

Perhaps it is the expectation and anticipation of others that makes it easier to just backslide. A very well-meaning friend said to me the other day, "It's so great that you're doing this for yourself. And you know, now that people are noticing it, you have to just keep going! That's great!" I know it was a compliment, but I cannot put into words the fear that gripped my throat when I realized she was right. People were starting to notice my weight loss. They were going to start looking for more of it, less of me. It's far less pressure to just be the chubby girl who everything thinks is funny and has a pretty face.

I remember it happening last time as well. After spending most of my 20s in this same weight range, I distinctly recall the barrage of compliments as I neared 15-20 pounds of weight loss. I stopped being me and became the pounds I was losing. It's all anyone talked about. It's all they wanted to hear about--how was I doing it? How was I feeling? Did I know how great I looked? The pressure to keep it up was tremendous. When I stopped losing at 140 and stayed there, gradually the attention receded and I felt like myself for the next 5 years.

It is such an irony. I want to lose weight, but I don't want people to notice. I don't want them to talk to me about it, or compliment me on it. Maybe because when they do I have to admit that I am/was fat and that it is/was enough of a detriment to my appearance that the absence of a few pounds becomes noteworthy.

But is it fair to ask people NOT to notice? Not to compliment and comment? I think it's one of my biggest hurdles on this path because it is such a contradiction and it is such psychological barrier for me. I will actually find a way to eat more right after someone has pointed out how good I look. I've caught myself doing it on more than one occasion. I can't expect people to know how it makes me feel to be in the spotlight for this particular "accomplishment". They only mean well when they say flattering things. I need to get past it.

Which is why I'm back on the blog, back on the wagon, poised and ready for the next compliment that comes my way to make sure I don't use it as an excuse to take another superfluous bite.

Oh, and skim chai tea lattes taste way better than soy chai tea lattes and they save me 20 grams of fat. Fabulous.

1 comment:

Becca said...

It's scary that a drink can contain 20 grams of fat to begin with, isn't it? I'm going to remember the skim chai tea latte, that sounds yummy. I felt the same way about being pregant. I didn't want anyone to notice my growing belly but that's the only thing people could find to talk about with me. Why are we all so focused on what people look like?