Musings from a Morbidly Obese Mind Continues

The Weight Loss Continues and Questions seems to be the same. 

"Susan, what are you doing to lose so much weight?" If I've heard it once, I heard it a thousand times. I appreciated people noticing. It was a good thing. No, a great thing. I had lost around 50 lbs in about 16 weeks and stayed true to the "diet" I was on.

It was simple: open a meal replacement, eat it, drink water....lots of water, eat one simple meal of veggies and protein and then the next day, do it again.

This was my reply over and over again. The more I said it, the more I was starting to feel like a parrot and just wanted to hand someone a card with directions and get them to do what I was doing. I had more energy, which seemed funny to me.

I had always thought I was like The Energizer Bunny and was always non stop before but this was getting crazy.  Now if you have ever dieted, you know you will most likely reach some point along the way that you just decide you are done with what you are doing. Progress made, weight lost (albeit may be 5 lbs or 50) but you just for some reason are done. 

For someone who is morbidly obese, I think we have a different genetic makeup. Everyone is different in their thinking but there seems to be a universal message people channel to you. You are fat because you eat too much and you are lazy. While most people do not actually say it out loud to you, it is how we are made to feel. So we just take in the unsaid words, day after day after day. We even say it to ourselves sometimes.

In my case, I was "fat" and knew it but not lazy. I was very active. Running a bookstore is no easy task. Even after having others help at the store, I was always on the go. My staff described me as "Hurricane Susan" because I was constantly on the move, creating chaos in my wake and unstoppable. I rarely ate and when you observed me, you may wonder, "why is she so heavy?". 

So the answer was obvious to me after October. I found the answer to the weight issue and just needed to keep doing what I had been doing. But the day arrived and it was going to be a "cheat" day. For the first time in months I had planned to give myself permission to go off the diet and enjoy the day. We had Sugo's in Roswell cater the wedding and Miss Mamie's Cupcakes in Marietta (yup the one that just won Cupcake Wars!) made the wedding cake. This was going to be great! The day came, the nuptials were said and now on to the food!

Oh wait. What is wrong. I see the food, I see the cake but something totally unexpected happened! I didn't want to eat it. That can't be right, I am sure of it. I was so looking forward to my "reward". Now does that even make sense? Why would someone on a diet reward themselves with food as a prize for losing weight? I am sure I am not the only one that has ever done this.

But truthfully, the food looked great, smelled great and people were oooohing and ahhhing over the food and all I could think is that  it just isn't right that I didn't want any of it. Truth. I actually talked myself into having about a bite of everything just to try it but none of it was as good as I imagined it would be. Don't get me wrong, it was good. No, it was great. EVERYONE said so. The cake was amazing as well.

But the crazy fight that went on in my head over to eat or not eat was pretty much stealing my joy. Food should not do that. Nothing should do that to you. What a let down and then to boot, the guilt that comes with the knowledge that I made the choice to eat the food that I really didn't want was the icing on the wedding cake! 

5 days later, it was time to celebrate again. This time it was my birthday and I spent the day going to Alabama to The Unclaimed Baggage Center. I had heard it was a mecca of great finds and we drove all the way there to find out it was not quite what I expected and was overpriced for frugal minded people like me. With not a lot of treasure to show for it, the only thing I managed to do was to be off the diet again, eat things I "thought" I wanted and be disappointed there too. That one blooming onion I had missed, the yummy rice dish at my favorite bed  and breakfast and the potato soup that I missed so much all tasted equally just ok. Not good, not great, just ok. Well that wasn't worth it!

So back to what had been working. Back on "plan" and time to get back to being serious about shedding the rest of the weight. It was evident to me, eating was just not going to be the same anymore. What had changed. Did anything change? The food didn't change. It was just my mind set that had changed. I, for the first time in my life, gave myself permission to do the right thing for me. Take care of myself and that is when I knew I was starting to change.

To be continued...