Dang but it's cold! I guess I shouldn't complain though...I'm reading and talking to friends who are in places that are a tad bit colder than here. My problem. I'm working the drive through window...and it's just DRAFTY. Every time I send out the bucket I get a huge draft of cold air. My fingers are FROZEN! The counter heater is on...and there is a metal bar inset into the desk (don't ask my why...or what...but it's there) and it is toasty warm...so I'm sitting with my fingers curled up on this little metal strip!
I'm going to get the basics out of the way and then write about what I'm thinking about.
*got to the gym today. Exercised for an hour...then came home and cleaned the house before going to work.
*Staying within my points....and also tracking calories...just to see what's happening.
*My weight was at 197.0 this morning. The lowest it has been in over a month!
Last night I watched a movie. Well, actually it was a documentary, called Thin. It was about a group of women that were in a rehab center for eating disorders. I watched it because I'm curious. Curious because these are women that struggle with a totally different side of an eating problem. Something that I can not fathom. But I felt compelled to watch and learn about it.
Now, my husband at one point told me that he was afraid that I would lose weight and not know where to stop and just keep losing weight. I admit, I can get REALLY involved in this weight loss process...but I've always assured him that I have no desire to be a string bean. I want to be healthy.
But regardless, I wanted to watch this documentary. Food Addiction is a disease and while it is seemingly total opposite of an eating disorder such as anorexia or bulimia, I wanted to watch and learn.
As I watched this documentary, I was shocked at the efforts these girls/ladies were and are willing to take. But underlying it all, I was sitting there thinking. Oh my word. These ladies are battling the some of the same feelings and thoughts that I have. They are just taking their efforts to reach the epitome that they desire, the extreme. It was quite sobering.
One lady talked about how she would start to eat and just lose control of what and how much she was eating. Sound familiar????
In some of the scenes they showed them talking about why and what started their problems. At least two of the girls talked about how in their childhood they were told that they were fat. In one case by a doctor. In another by a mother who put their child on a strict diet and exercise regime at age 5.
But the biggest thing that I took away is that these 70 pound women honestly believed that they were fat. The one 80-90 pound young girl (aged 15) was crying because she was getting a double chin....and when she left the rehab center her goal was to lose 40 pounds. She honestly thought that she needed to do that in order to fit in with the other skinny people. Their mental image of themselves is that warped.
On therapist had a patient draw a life sized drawing of herself. THEN she had the patient stand in front of the drawing and she traced the girls body....to show how different the perception and the true body was.
Now, as I said earlier...I am in no way at risk for this extremist type of behavior. I am losing to be healthy! Healthy these girls were not! But it did make me ponder a few things about myself.
The biggest.....how is my perception of my body? I know that when I was big, I had the opposite, I didn't think I was as big as I am. But now that I've lost weight, that perception has changed. I just can't believe and grasp the fact that I'm no longer morbidly obese. I STILL pull a shirt out of the closet and hold it up thinking, "there is no way that this shirt will fit me". In essence, I have a warped sense of reality also. The question is....how does one go about actually grasping and understanding that those perceptions are incorrect. For me I think a good deal is just the fact that for so many years I had to do things certain ways that I get used to it.... stuff like, standing on tip-toe to squeeze through a turnstile...I still find myself doing it....even though I can go straight through with no problem.....panicking at a restaurant when they put us in a booth...because that means I'll be crunched up with no room to move. Those sorts of things.
I guess it just takes time!
I'm just starting to be able to look at my body naked and not be ashamed and kinda grossed out. I still have some cellulite on butt adn thighs, but I'm developing quite a bit of shape (not bad, at 40). I look worse in clothes, but that's because all these clothes were bought 25 pounds ago, and they make me look fat. My underware are baggy like diapers.
ReplyDeleteAs far as the rest goes, I still expect to be invisible as a heavy woman, but people are noticing me. It's a bit startling at times, but it's okay.
After so many times of up and down dieting and losing weight, I know exactly where you are coming from. I think it take a lONG time to accept ones newer, thinner body, especially the longer you have been heavy. I too, pull out clothes I think are too small, and they either fit fine or are now too big. It took me several times going in to a store NOT to go directly to the plus size department, and even longer to start looking for smaller sizers. Glad to hear you are seeing a loss. Keep up the good work!
ReplyDeleteVery interesting post. We have to ensure that we always have a "real" picture of what we look like, but that is not as easy as it sounds.
ReplyDeleteI agree totally about perceptions of oneself not being accurate. I wish that I had measured myself at my highest weight in college so I could "see" the difference. Even though I can see the difference on the scale I still feel the same proportionally, just a smaller version of myself...hard to explain but hopefully you can see where I'm going with this.
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