Fat Chance

Most of you who read this know me pretty well. If you don't know me, you've most likely been around me enough to know that I'm a relatively blunt person.

This blog is going to be just that.

Blunt.

And it might be uncomfortable at times.


Consider yourself warned. 


I typically save this site for sarcastic recounts of the everyday life that we live as a married couple. Which is all great and fine; however, lately I've been digging a pretty deep, depressing hole  internally.

Part of it is probably due to the amount of medication my OB has me on, causing my hormones to be considerably out of whack [don't ask].
The other part is simply that I've been itching to share it with someone other than the voice inside my head. [That gets repetitive after a while]
And let's face it; regardless of whether or not anyone reads this, anything that has been irritating your conscience tends to ease up after you get it out in the open.

That being said-
.....................................

No one likes to talk about weight. Whether it's responding to someone saying "I need to lose weight" or "I'm so fat." It's uncomfortable, plain and simple. Because it's so personal. There's nothing I, the listener, can do except try to make the other person feel better. [Please don't feel the need to comment with those pitying words. That's not the purpose of this blog] Which, in the long run doesn't help anyway because most of their inner-wreckage has been done already. And then, you awkwardly change the subject and wish that you could crawl into a hole and die.

I've "struggled" with weight since I learned that being pretty meant being skinny. The quotes are there on purpose [I promise, I do know how to use them] because it's not a struggle of being overweight; I've never been that. I have, however, been stocky. "Big-Boned", Chubby, whatever you want to call it. I've never once been referred to as the skinny girl.

I'm the typical person that looks back at old pictures from high school and middle school and says out loud "God, I was skinny!" But I hated myself at the time. What for? Because I wasn't a stick. Because I couldn't fit into a size 0 and wish they had a size smaller because these jeans are little baggy. I was average. I've always been average. Every clothes store I went to was always out of my size because it seemed that every other teenager in America [except for those few size 0's] were my size.

But that was never good enough. No, average meant that I wasn't unique. Independent. I was the same. The same as everyone else. Ask my parents and they'll tell you that I am as stubborn as they come [don't worry mom & dad - I'll get mine when we have a teenager. ;) ]. I didn't want to be average. I wanted to be the skinny girl.

And you know what? I've changed. I've come to the realization that God wanted me to be stocky to go along with my stocky personality. Mentally, I don't let people push me down and I sure as hell don't let them tell me they're better than me [regardless of whether or not they actually are]. But there's still that wanna-be skinny girl nagging at me in my head, wishing for once I could try on clothes in a store and not leave depressed. Or eat a piece of pizza without feeling guilty.

You all might remember this time last year that I was down to my lowest weight since high school. I'm sure you all remember because you showered me with compliments [thanks again - a girl can never get enough of those :)] and I deserved it. I worked my ass off for it. I was a machine, constantly worrying about what I ate, how much I worked out. And then a few life-altering things happened; job change, moving, everything in-between. I let change ruin everything.

I had worked months running, sweating, eating right - and all of it seemed to halt in a mere matter of months.  And I slowly began packin' on the pounds again.
[here's the uncomfortable part]

I have no one to blame but myself. These past few months were a disgrace to a healthy eating regimen. From cocktails to pizza to late night snacks. They all add up. I was no longer weighing, measuring, counting every single thing I eat. Which is no way to live, sure, but it's got to be done in order to lose what I want to lose. For now.

I'm obsessed with the site www.sparkpeople.com. There's a  book to go along with it - you know, one of those sappy, motivational books - that teaches you healthy eating, success stories, etc. There's a great calorie counting app included as well as a fitness tracker & a whole horde of people who also have a daily struggle with weight loss & maintaining. And the best part? It works. Because you have a community of people blanketing you with support and the tools to hold yourself responsible for your own actions.

I'm not going to tell you my plan to lose weight because, really, it doesn't apply to your life so I would just be boring you with the details. 

And the purpose of this blog was not to make you feel uncomfortable [though in all fairness, I did warn you].

It's simply to tell you that it's all I can think about.

That's it.

Constantly.

I'm annoyed that I am so incredibly vain and I can think of nothing else. There are people in my life that have day to day struggles that nothing happening in my life can even compare to.

But all I can think about it how much I've ate that day, or feeling guilty because I didn't work out.

And honestly? I don't have a solution to this.
There is no happy ending.

Because weight loss isn't just eating less for a few months and working your ass off at the gym. Because once you've lost that weight, then there's the maintaining. And that's where SparkPeople comes in. It teaches you healthy eating, making exercise fun [and do-able], loving life. 

I feel that I will live my entire life in a constant state of fear. Fear that I will not be a size 4. That I will always lie on my driver's license under the "weight" section. That when I get pregnant I'm going to swell up like a balloon.

It's not really a great way to live.

I'm working on it. And I'm working on my attitude.

Really, I just needed to vent. Otherwise I was going to crack.

I'm not a very vocal person when it comes to touchy subjects like weight, pregnancy, personal things in general - you all know that. I went out on a limb here in hopes that you will all understand if you call me and I'm totally distant or if I'm not as cheery as I once was, that's why.

I'm working on it, I promise.

And there are other things going on in my life that are taking up a great chuck of my thoughts, too. But those are going to have to be put on hold right now. I'm living life one thing at a time.

Step one: owning up. Let go of the crap I've been eating and the lack of workouts and the negative attitude. It's all in the past and there is nothing I can do do change that. I'm going to get back to my "happy weight". And if that means a few bitchy days, blood, sweat, and tears, then so be it. That's what it's gotta be. All I know is I want to be happy again, and I'm making myself do it. Not tomorrow. Not Monday. There's no putting it off. It's already done.

And that, my friends, is the honest, blunt truth.
-Mal