See, when you're fat- people aren't afraid to tell you so. They aren't afraid to voice their displeasure with the size of your body. They do this in a number of ways. When you're eight, they pick you last at every sport. You stand there, eager to play, waiting for someone to call your name. No one ever does until it's apparent that you're the only one left and, even then, they don't actually claim you as one of their own. When you're thirteen, they make noises behind you as you walk from one class to the next: BOOM BOOM BOOM!! And stamping their feet. When you're seventeen, they slap you on the butt in the hallway and say their friend did it, at which time said friend declares, "I ain't no damn chubby chaser!" When you're twenty-one, someone tells you to your face that they would rather die than be you. Die. They would rather be dead than to be you. Because you are Fat. How dare you breathe the same air as them?
Being Fat, you get quite used to the backhanded compliment. You hear comments like, "You have such a pretty face. You just need to lose a few pounds." or "You're so beautiful on the inside, but you're just not my type." or my personal favorite "You're such a smart girl. How did you let yourself go?"
The thing is- I thought they had the right to say those things to me. I'm Fat afterall. What a shame.
Sometimes even the people closest to you can hurt you beyond imagine. I've mentioned my rocky relationship with my grandmother. She was infamous for telling people exactly how she felt. I was no exception. I was feeding her breakfast a couple of years ago when she stopped chewing and asked, "Do you honestly like living the way you do? Do you enjoy being this big?" I just looked back at her. "Why, yes!" I wanted to say, "Yes! I love the fact that I can't go into a regular store and buy cothes. I adore going to a resturant and not being sure if I could sit in a boothe. It makes me exstatic to get in a car with others and not know if the seat belt will fit. It makes me so happy that I missed being in my best friend's wedding because I thought I would ruin her bridal party. I love seeing a guy looking at me and wondering if he's looking because he likes me or because he thinks I'm disgusting. Yeah that's just the kind of life I want to live."
Now I can already hear the neigh-sayers: If you are so miserable-CHANGE it. Well that's a really nice thought isn't it? Just fix it. Well, that was simple. Wrong again. But that's another perk of being Fat. People assume you sit around stuffing your face with fast food and candy bars. How else could you get so big? Let me just say: I do not do this. I never did. I've had friends who were a lot thinner and ate twice as much as I did, but to the outsider looking in, I was the pig. I have tried everything, most courtesy of-you guessed it: my grandmother. I've done Dexitrim, Metabolite, Alli (before it was OTC), the Mayo Clinic diet, some kind of spray stuff that you sprayed in the mouth of the Fatty and it ate their fat cells. I have vivid memories of walking laps at recess in fourth grade instead of playing because the boy I had a crush on said he didn't like Fat girls. The whole time I was walking I thought, "I'm Fat. He doesn't like me cuz I'm Fat. I'm gonna walk so I won't be Fat anymore. He'll like me then." I was teaching myself to change for someone else. Did I mention I was ten?
I never seemed to get it right. Despite many attempts and many failures, diets continued to come and go. I heard it all, "Diets don't work. It's a lifestyle change." Suffice to say many a "lifestyle change" followed, each bringing with it a lower level of sefl-esteem. Somewhere along the line, I lost who I was. I just stopped caring. I carried that emotional baggage around with me and I saw the light at the end of the tunnel getting smaller and smaller. I felt like a prisoner, trapped in a body that had raged against me. I just knew that my future was over. No man would ever love me. No employer was going to hire me. I would never have children. I would die alone.
Right after 2009 began, I began ripping the exercise portions out of Seventeen Magazine. I was motivated. I was going to change this. I taped it to the back of the bathroom door along with images of women I considered to be healthy AND beautiful and inspirational quotes. My mom and I got a bicycles. When we picked them up, my uncle put them together. Mom's was finished first. Everyone (except for myself) took turns riding it around my grandmother's property. When he was done with mine, I couldn't push away the uneasiness in the pit of my stomache. I sent everyone else away except my younger cousin. Riding a bike was not quite the same at my current size as it had been when I was a child. I fell, but it wasnt just my body that hit the ground. Every bit of sadness that I had tried to talk myself out of, every negative thought, every mean comment; all hit the ground as well with my already tattered self-worth breaking the fall. My cousin stood there and held me as I cried. That was it. At that moment I cried, mostly because my saving grace, my hope was gone. The little sliver of light that I had been clinging to was gone. I shuddered at the thought of the coming coldness.
My life changed on June 29, 2010. I like to refer to this as my re-birthday. I went to a doctor specializing in weight loss and found out that I have a condition called Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PcOS). In a nutshell, this syndrome is fueled by high levels of insulin spiked by carbohydrates and sugar, meaning the smallest amount causes my body to gain weight faster than the average person. I began a diet (not in the traditional sense) stripped of sugar and limited to 30-45 grams of carbs a day obtained from other sources (no main carbs). My hope was given back to me that day. Suddenly light was streaming in from every possible direction. I was not a lost cause! I knew it wasn't going to be easy, but I knew that they were telling me I had a chance. I can't put into words how much this means to me. I had come to identify myself by my weight. Who was I? I was a Fat person. I was used to making compromises. I was okay with remaining in the shadows. The people at my doctors office helped me realize that it's not okay to compromise who I am. They gave me the strength to step out from the shadows and allow myself to shine, but not because I was losing weight; but just because I was me.
I'm not where I want to be...yet. But I'm getting there. I will never be one of those people who destroys all of the pictures of them when they were Fat. This is who I was. This is where I came from. This is my journey and I am not ashamed. Please don't misunderstand: I am not condoning obesity. However, every obese person is so for their own laundry list of reasons, most of which aren't the ones people assume. It does not help to make them feel like criminals for contributing to the "Obesity Epidemic". They do not deserve to be treated the way they are. I didn't deserve to be treated the way I was. We are HUMAN. Every one of us. I won't be made to feel like anything less than that.I don't allow myself to carry around the negative thoughts of others. I refuse to let other people shape how I feel about myself. I found so much strength within myself that I never knew I had. I will not starve myself. I will not stand in front of a mirror and tell myself how ugly I am. I will never think that the world would be a better place if I wasn't in it. I will never allow my parents to blame themselves for something that, ultimately, was not their fault. I won't remove myself from special occasions with friends because I think I embarrass them. I will not throw my arms in the air and surrender. No, I will not do any of that. I will eat healthy foods. I will exercise. I will lower my arms, raise my head, and move on. Because that's all I can do. That's all I know how to do. That's the only way life moves: Forward.
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