Weighting and Wondering

So here goes a major step on my journey of honesty and self discovery.

I am fat.

I am 5’1” tall and weigh…weight for it…ha ha weight…I’m so funny…180.4 pounds. There.

This is what fat me looks like right this very second. I did not crop out my face so you can see how um, happy, I was to take my own phat photo. Phat photo…hee hee I’m on a roll today! Very biggest looseresque of me don’tca think?


Monday I started Weight Watchers again. I used Weight Watchers about 8 years ago to drop 45 pounds. I used the past 8 years to get divorced, remarried, have 2 babies, and eat my way through most of the northern hemisphere. I had a great time, but alas, I am sick and tired of being a little round girl.

Besides the improved aesthetics of losing weight my reasons are 3 fold:
1. Improve my healthfulness (ie energy, mood, stamina, longevity, etc)
2. Improve my self esteem
3. Concentrate on something that I actually CAN control

So far so good, I have had more than enough points to eat whenever I want and not feel hungry. Plus, a lot of things have changed food wise in the past 8 years. Fat free cheese actually melts and fat free mayo does not taste like weird sweetened gelatinous sludge. They even have 1 point ice cream fudge bars. Woo Hoo!

Here is a picture of my yummy Monday morning breakfast. It consists of a 3 egg white omelet (with spinach, onion, and fat free cheddar cheese) and a whole wheat English muffin with a yogurt fruit spread. It was huge, extremely filling, and only 5 points.

I think about many things when I contemplate my weight.

I remember my Father always giving my Mom a hard time about her weight. He would point out her size, how her clothing fit, and what she was eating. I remember my Mom secretly going through the drive-thru or hiding in the kitchen eating “bad” food just to spite him. My idea of overweight = unacceptable came from that.

I remember growing up that I always had girlfriends who I believed to be prettier and thinner than myself. As if somehow, I’d be thin and pretty by association. In reality, I ended up making myself feel like the fat ugly friend. No one ever pointed out to me that I was either of those things…it was just how I felt…overweight = unattractive, unpopular, unwanted, mostly tolerated.

As an adult I recall a pot luck office party when I worked at Charles Schwab. I remember getting so super excited about the deserts, especially the pie. I told my friend Tami something like “OMG, yeah, hooray, WE HAVE PIE!!” Tami chuckled and said something like “Wow that’s a lot of excitement over pie.” The mental picture of me being a whopping 190+ pounds at the time doing the happy dance over pie is embarrassing. My friend Tami is tall, thin, blonde, and beautiful. She matches my typical friend MO. She is also extremely kindhearted and would never in a million years be cruel. She never intended anything hurtful during the pie incident. It was me hurting myself once again. In my mind it was the tall, thin, beautiful girl laughing down at her stumpy, fat, homely friend because of her over exuberance for baked goods. That day, overweight = humiliating.

On the flipside of that I also have a very profound memory of a conversation I had with my friend Bettina back in the Schwab days. Bettina is also thin, gorgeous, and fashionable. I always admired the way she looked, dressed, spoke, and lived. I remember telling her about how much I hated my body and lack of style. I told her how I longed to be more like her and her fancy Scottsdale friends. When I was done rocking out at my own pity party Bettina looked at me and said, “The things that you don’t like about yourself are all things that can be fixed. Weight can be lost and you can buy surgery or new clothes. Those things are easy to get. But Chelle, what you have cannot be bought. You have an amazing personality and you are smart and hilarious. My fancy friends can never buy that.”

That struck a deep cord with me. I already had something great. I am indeed special. Maybe those fancy people were a tad bit envious of people like me…just as I’d been envious of them. That day planted the seed that I could change what I did not like, overweight = temporary.

It has been a long road and I have tried many times to lose weight for the wrong reasons. I am starting again during a new phase of my life. I am doing it for me this time. It is part of this new journey that I am on. I am sharing it with you because I want to be transparent. I am ready to examine my past, identify the lessons that I missed, and finally lay them to rest.

I am ready to move on.