I have lost 100 pounds and gone from a size 24 to a size 14
(I even squeezed into a 12 recently!), but I will always think of myself as the
fat girl. And there are people who look at me, even now, after all this work,
and think of me as the fat girl. I can tell when people think it. I hate that I
still care, but I do.
I think what bothers me about it is that these people
automatically think that overweight people are lazy and have never tried to get
healthy. Yes, there are some people out there like that. But for most of us,
there are underlying conditions. Some people have legitimate and often
hereditary medical conditions that cause weight gain. Some people, like myself,
have food addictions. I am a food addict and always will be. It’s just like
being an alcoholic or being addicted to drugs. Food is my drug of choice. I
know people who will skip eating so that they can drink alcohol. I never
understood this. And they never understood that I’d rather go out to eat than
out drinking. A friend posted something on facebook recently about someone she
saw in store who was overweight and had an overweight child. I agree that
childhood obesity is a horrible epidemic, but I don’t think you should make
broad assumptions about people you see in public. You don’t know what their
struggles are, you know?
Someone asked me recently (and was sincerely and honestly
curious), “How does someone let it get that bad?” Meaning how could someone
ever let their weight get so out of control that they become morbidly obese? I
tried to explain it to her, but I could tell she didn’t understand. For me,
some of it was hereditary, but most of it was being a food addict. And once it
got bad, it was a vicious cycle that I couldn’t get out of. Similar to an
alcoholic or drug addict who goes on a binge. The binges cause health problems
that make you feel like crap or cause injuries and then you can’t get back on
the right track. Just when I would lose 20-25 lbs or so, I would hurt myself or
get a really bad flu or something…and I would eat. And then I’d stop working
out. And eat some more. I just gave up. I was killing myself. I will always
struggle with my food addiction. But I hope that this journey I have gone down
will keep me on a healthier path. I know that I will slip. I slip all the time
now. But then I try to get back in the saddle.
And maybe someday I will stop thinking of myself as the fat
chick. But I will never forget what it’s like being fat. I will not become one
of those people who doesn’t understand how someone could be fat or assumes
someone is lazy because they are overweight.
