What No One Told Me About Losing Weight

Since I was conscious of myself as a person (which was at the very ripe age of three years old), I have been aware of the shape of my body. It couldn't be helped, really. Nevermind the dark period of my life when I was six years old (detailed in my recent blog post, "Chastity Talk from a Rape Victim"), which certainly didn't help. I was always very aware of the shape of my body. Like any young girl, you wait eagerly for the initiation of breasts (which was a total let down; they're so annoying and a total pain in the butt). There was always this fascination with who I was, in the shape of my person. When your awareness of your placement in the world in an existential way comes at so young an age, you find yourself examining everything about you and the little world you inhabit in great detail.

The first time I was made fun of for my weight was when I was six by my cousin and his friends. Looking back, I know that I didn't weigh any more than the average six-year-old; for a few years I was slightly taller than most of my fellow students, so I think that must have made me look bulkier than others. I don't remember the exact words, but I do remember biting back tears at the comment that I was fat and would slow them down in their activities.

Before I even knew what the word "complex" meant, I had developed one about my weight. Praise God, it didn't turn into an eating disorder, although the temptation was certainly there. My father being a chef I think helped prevent that. I loved food too much to go without it. But I developed a very dark and self-hating internal dialogue about anything regarding my weight.

I was stockier than most. Thanks to my German and Irish heritage, I had the advantage of more arm hair than most girls and furry eyebrows to boot, but more than anything I hated my rib cage and my linebacker shoulders. They made it absolute misery to try on clothing because even if I didn't have a large stomach at the time, my rib cage would make it virtually impossible to find clothing I liked. I didn't know how to shop for clothing that fit me, and let's face it, clothing sizes for women are one of the most inconsistent things you'll find.

After I hit puberty, I started gaining weight rapidly and had no idea why. I have never been an emotional eater; in fact, I have the opposite problem. When I'm stressed, depressed, or maxed out, I'll go without and not eat at all. A classic example of this was when I was doing theater in college, and during Hell week for our play, I lost five pounds simply because I was so stressed I didn't have an appetite. By the time we performed, my costume didn't fit.

If that weren't enough, I was fighting some of the worst stomach issues. Without getting graphic, I was running to the bathroom all hours of the day and night for years. On our family vacation to Arizona when I was in the eighth grade, I lost twelve pounds in 10 days because every time we'd eat out, I'd get sick and would have to use the restroom.

Doctors thought it was just fast food. But as the years passed, and my condition worsened, it didn't matter what I ate. I would get sick as much from a banana as I would from a cheeseburger. There were certain foods and certain restaurants I avoided when I was miraculously able to connect a correlation of stomach upset to that particular food, but even that was rare. And yet, I still gained weight.

I was poked and prodded and had blood drawn more times than I could count, to try and figure out what was wrong with me and what to do. When I was fourteen, I was given a diagnosis of PCOS (Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome, more info here) which was, I thought, a glimmer in the right direction. Until the meds started. Before I get into that, I want to make it very clear that I am NOT anti-medication. At all. What I am against is being prescribed medications in the wrong capacities that make it harder to treat the ill person and actually make things worse.

Being Catholic and being informed of the side effects, there was no way I was going on birth control, although I was told on more occasions than I cared to count that that was my only option if I wanted to get everything fixed. I still didn't want to, so instead I was placed on a blood sugar medication (although I was not diabetic and this medication was prescribed to those specifically needing help with blood sugar) and this medication made me violently ill. To the point that my regular stomach upsets seemed like a blessing afterward.

Eventually, I stopped going to the doctors. I was tired of being given the derisive looks from the CNA's weighing me and telling me that I'd gain such and such weight since my last appointment and being told that I needed to work out more and lose weight. I was tired of the misdiagnosis and even worse, being given a diagnosis and not being allowed any other treatment for it other than birth control. As these stories always go, however, my symptoms didn't go away. They got steadily worse.

The older I got, the harder it was to understand what was happening to me. I ate about average for my height and size, and yet I was gaining weight, and getting sick, more often than I imagined I would. I tried dieting, only to find that I was sick from hunger because the diets I tried didn't work and the workouts that I did only left me more exhausted and sick after I was done. What's more, instead of just stomach upsets, my abdomen hurt all the time. These weren't just stomach aches; it was sharp, stabbing pain in my gut all the time. No matter what I ate, no matter what I did. It always hurt.

Around this time I was also diagnosed with Fibromyalgia (more info here), which helped put the pieces together for a lot of other issues I was having, and yet still, I was left clueless as to why my weight fluctuated so greatly and why, no matter what I did, I couldn't lose weight.

I was at the end of my rope. I felt sick all the time. Eating became a nightmare for me. The thought of food, which was once a pleasant and hopeful enjoyment for me, was misery.

A dear friend of mine who'd received her degree in Nursing did some research for me and found a website called PCOS Diet Support, run by a woman who discovered she had PCOS and who has done gads of research on the subject for herself and is now sharing it with other women who are suffering with the same issues. (If you have PCOS, please check this out. This woman's research and suggestions on how to manage your symptoms changed my life). Finding my way through the nutrition side of things, I read more and more research there that stated a very specific diet for women with PCOS that would not only help them lose weight but would make them feel better overall. This diet, to sum it up, is to go gluten free, dairy free, and cut out most other carbs such as potatoes, rice, and oats because of what they do to our blood sugar.

So I did it. Having nothing else to lose, I did it. Let me tell you, it was (and in many ways, still is) one of the hardest changes I've ever had to make. Even though I didn't indulge in emotional eating, I did receive more emotional comfort from food than I'd thought. There were so many memories and good times attached to the food I ate that I hadn't realized were there until I gave it up. The hunger from a nutrition change is real, let me tell you. It is all you can do to keep away from the foods that you know will fill you up because of how much your stomach hurts from hunger. But then you remember how poorly that same food made you feel before, so you somehow find the salt to keep going as you are.

It worked. In a month, I had dropped around 20 pounds. (For my own sanity, I stopped weighing myself a couple of months in). My stomach stopped hurting. I felt more energetic, and happier. I know this sounds like a clichéd diet story, but honest and true, this is what happened. Because of my fibromyalgia, I still feel exhausted, but this nutrition change has been an absolute miracle in my life. What's more, I'm able to go shopping now and buy clothes that wouldn't have fit me in a million years. I'm not embarrassed to wear form-fitting shirts or dresses. It's almost as if losing that weight gave me permission to dress the way I'd always wanted to dress.

And there we have it, ladies and gentlemen. The point of our discussion tonight, and the summary of everything no one told me would happen to me after I lost weight.

No one ever told me that seeing myself as beautiful since I'm thinner would so greatly affect how I see myself in memories and in past photographs, and how judgmental and cruel I would be to myself, even though I know now that my previous weight wasn't my fault.

No one warned me that the desire to lose weight doesn't stop with the first major chunk; any sort of curves I see on myself I still find myself despising. I find myself cursing out clothing designers when I go shopping because I know that certain areas of clothing are sized especially small and that even though I've lost near forty pounds by now, certain smaller sizes that fit me elsewhere don't fit me there.

No one told me that I would fight a constant battle to not make my new weight an obsession. That I would compare old photographs with new ones and beat myself up if I noticed I'd gained a few pounds back.

No one cautioned me that I would wonder, in an even greater way now than before, why the men I'd loved left me, because, for the first time in my life, I can see a spark of beauty in myself that I've never seen before. If you were beautiful all that time and didn't know it, why did they leave? It must have been me. There must be something wrong with me.

No one told me how much relatives' compliments would hurt after they've mocked you and hounded you about your weight since your earliest memories. Suddenly you're accepted after dropping these pounds because, for one reason or another, you just weren't good enough before.

No one told me how your new nutrition, that you do for your own health and well-being, would become a passive aggressive tool for those who don't understand it and who would tease you with foods you can't eat. It's not like cheating on a regular diet; cheating on gluten or dairy is the difference between getting a good night's sleep or being up all hours of the night with body aches, a migraine, and a very unhappy stomach.

No one told me how lonely holidays would be when most of the food served is out of your range. When so much of holidays are surrounded by food, you give in because the estrangement from those around you is so much more pronounced through food than it normally is, and then you end up sick.

That all said, I am more than a little grateful for the freedom in person and in health this nutrition change has given me. But I was not prepared for the new fights I would fight in learning just how wounded my self-image was and how badly I needed to change the way I see and speak to myself.

Not all my days are bad. Sometimes I pass a mirror and smile because, for the first time in my life, I was able to do it. I was able to lose weight and keep it off. The first time I fit in a small t-shirt, I was in tears. The first time I was able to try on a dress I loved and have it fit me on the first try, I was speechless. There is a real, genuine accomplishment in being able to take care of myself and for the first time not be ashamed of that fact.

But I will say this: there are a whole set of challenges to losing weight and keeping it off, and I don't mean just the actual weight on the scale. It's the fear of the scale. It's the fear of the looks on other's faces if they see you and think you'd gained all the weight back. It's the shadow of your former self, that self you loathe and feel guilty for loathing, that hangs behind you. It's not just the size of your clothing; it's that you're faced undeniably with the reality that you hated yourself for your weight and to hate anyone, especially yourself, for such a superficial reason makes you sick. But you're still petrified, frozen in white-knuckle terror, at becoming that way again.

I am genuinely working hard on loving myself for myself, weight or not. At seeing myself as a worthwhile person, no matter what size clothes I wear or if I can fit into a bikini. I am trying to, as St. Catherine of Siena puts it, see myself in the "gentle mirror of God".

If I could give any piece of advice, or word of warning, for those who are struggling with weight or after losing a lot of weight, I would tell you to gird your loins for the change in battle ahead. Any sort of change brings about conflict. I would also say this: you are beautiful, right now, just as you are. There is nothing wrong with you. If you want to change yourself, change! You do not need anyone's permission, and you are always loved by the One above, no matter what.

I'll end with another word from Saint Catherine, an encouragement and a reminder I think we all need: "What is it you want to change? Your hair, your face, your body? Why? For God is in love with all those things and He might weep when they are gone."

Comments

  1. You are so beautiful, and I admire your courage in vulnerably posting about this. Thank you for your honesty, it's so refreshing!

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    1. Thank you so much!! I really appreciate that dear ❤

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