50 pounds to go
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I have hit the '50 pounds lost' milestone and had a dance party in my bathroom this morning. Then Mike joined me for a dance party later in the kitchen.
The compliments and feedback that I have been receiving in the past few weeks have subtly shifted from "you are looking good" to "how much more weight do you want to lose?" Here is my standard canned response: "I set a goal for myself in the beginning that I want to lose 100 pounds because that's what the weight loss clinic / doctor told me. So that means I have 50 pounds left to go. I am going to continue on this adventure until I achieve my goal because I've never been able to do that before. Once I get there, if I feel I'm too thin, I will put on a few pounds until I have the body that I've always wanted to have. If I feel like I need to lose a few more pounds, then I'll do that. We'll see when I get there. " When I say this, I inherently feel guilty. Like my goal is too low and I shouldn't want to be that thin. Or, I can feel the judgement wafting off the other person which says:
"You look good already."
"50 more pounds is too many."
"You will be too thin if you lose 50 more pounds."
"You are in danger of becoming an anorexic if you lose that much more weight."
"That is unhealthy."
And, there is the shadenfreude lurking beneath the surface which says:
"You'll never be able to achieve that"
"You'll just gain all the weight back once you get there."
Or, if the person is an inherently angry or judgmental who is also overweight, it's almost as if my weight loss makes them mad or uncomfortable. I went into this awkward feeling in more detail earlier in my posts, so I will refrain from doing it again now. Ultimately, I know it's something that's going on with them, not me, so I have to learn how to not let that feeling affect me. However, those emotions have definitely detonated in the last few weeks.
Getting back to the original discussion: is 50 pounds more too many? If I were to announce my number, and instantaneous judgment also comes tagging along. Just pick one. Two hundred. Two twenty. One eighty. One fifty. One seventy five. One thirty. One eighteen. Or as men like to say, "she couldn't be more than a buck-oh-five soaking wet. " I get this feeling that men think the normal weight range for women is between 105-130 pounds. Anything over that is fat or overweight. As we all know, everyone carries their weight differently. If you are tall you will look thinner at 150 pounds. If you are short, you will look fatter at 150 pounds. If you have no muscle, it doesn't take too high of a number to look fat. If you're a six foot three burlyman then 220 will look trim. I have shared with a chosen few my number and typically the first reaction is surprise. Really? I didn't know it was that high. Then when I say I want to lose 50 more pounds they say, "well, that sounds pretty reasonable."
What's your number? Or have you already fled?
Everyone has a number in their head that is the ideal weight. Then below or above is judgment. It's different for everyone and it doesn't matter what the number in your head is, what matters is that if you're judging then people can FEEL that emanating off you. Stop it! Coming from a family that has vacillated up and down for a lifetime with weight (as well as combining with huge stuff-yourself-food-is-love parties) this conversation comes up a lot. And we judge what the media portrays a lot. And we judge women in magazines. We judge our skinny friends. We judge our fat friends. We have a pastime of judging one another but not to their face. Then we hear about it second hand. So-and-so wants me to talk to you because you're too fat. They're worried. So-and-so wants me to talk to you because you're too skinny. We're worried. I know it's why I've plastered a big giant "stop" sign on my forehead for so many years and stayed at the same weight. I was comfortable. And secondly, what's it to you? Why does my number matter so much? As you can see, this detonates a bomb of self destructive thinking in my own mind, and what it comes down to is I want people to care about me, not the number on my bathroom scale. Humans are judge-y people so I know inherently we can't help ourselves but it doesn't mean I can't feel annoyed. What it comes down to is that I don't share my number because it's private. I don't want to have to put up a shield of self-protection / rationalization that I know is coming if I were to share it.
Now that I'm I'm at the halfway point, I almost feel like I'm starting over with the comments and how I perceive my own body shape. Going back to my very first post, I said:
Do I really look like someone who seriously needs to lose weight and am deluding myself because I happen to like the way I look? Do I have a skinny spirit inside a more-than-voluptious body? Every time I see pictures of myself I cringe but when I look in the mirror I feel good…. When I've told those who are close to me that the number is 100 pounds they give me statements of disbelief. Is it because we're all used to people being at least overweight if not obese? Is it comfort talk? Is it somewhere in the middle? I'm finding more and more recently (like within the last 2 months) women who are seriously obese come up to me and saying things like "us girls have to stick together on this" and it makes me cringe inside. I don't feel like I'm part of a fat club that needs defending."
I don't cringe when I look at pictures anymore, I feel pretty good about them. Although once in awhile, someone still gets me at a very unflattering angle to which I say "Are you kidding me?? Delete that shit! Immediately!" Again, when it comes to my body shape: am I delusional or not delusional? Do I still look overweight? Do I look healthy? Do I look healthy because the majority of us are overweight or obese? I still don't think I'm in the position to give a balanced answer to that question. If I had to make one statement about my body shape without trying to sound conceited or defensive I would say that I am fortunate to have an hourglass figure that holds weight a little better and I think I have more muscle than the average bear because I have been fairly active from a young age.
Looking at the numbers with the cool eye of a doctor or weight loss clinic, there is a BMI chart that shows what is a healthy range for women by height and weight. For me, I just exited the "obese" category and moved into "overweight." In 30 pounds I will move from the "overweight" category into "healthy range." Here's the thing, the healthy range has a 30 pound spread. So really, I could lose 60+ more pounds and still be considered healthy. And those are the facts ma'am.
The truth is, I want to lose 50 more pounds. I've never seen my body at that size. I want to know what my body looks like at that weight. I want to achieve my goal. I want to see if I will have that flat stomach sans pooch that I haven't seen since I was 14 years old and not fully developed so it doesn't count. If I get there and I do look scary skinny where my head is too big for my body or my ribs are poking out like a starvation victim, then yes -- I'll put on a few pounds to look healthy. And if I get there and I still have the belly pooch, in all honesty I'll probably try to keep going and get rid of it. This is still my journey and I'm proud to be on the path.
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