A New Journey

390 pounds.  That was my highest weight ever.  379 pounds.  That’s what I weighed when I walked into Trung Nguyen’s garage/gym nearly three years ago.  162 was my lowest weight reached back in June of last year.  Recently my weight has been hovering around 180 pounds, still a tremendous accomplishment for someone who lived a lifetime of obesity.

I have gained 20 pounds from my smallest, give or take, and I still weigh less than I did in high school.  I wish I could explain what it is like to grow up fat.  That was my identity.  That’s who I was.

My parents constantly bribed me to lose weight, but I had no clue how to go about it.  I would have loved to not be fat any more.  The kids at school made fun of me.  I desperately wanted to fit in.  Instead I got called, “tubby,” “fatso,” “earthquake,” “P43.”  Everything was about my fatness.  People didn’t like me because I was fat.  I was molested because I was fat.  My mother screamed at me because I was fat.

Call it paranoia, but some people do say stuff to you just because you’re fat.  Once I was at the local community college, taking an exercise class with my sister.  We had to walk around the pool and I heard the swim team talking about me.  There were those guys in Santa Cruz, there was the couple in the restaurant, there was that woman at the gym, there were too many to count and definitely not people worth remembering.

I experienced the world as a hostile place and so I was hostile.  Some people say that people treat you commiserate with your attitude, but what came first, the chicken or the egg?  Is it blaming the victim to say that if you had more self respect people wouldn’t talk trash?  Somehow I don’t believe that’s completely true.

I’m confused.  I don’t feel very conspicuous these days.  Men seem nicer.  More willing to carry on a conversation.  Can it be that if my attitude was the same then as it is now I would have experienced a kinder world all along?  That’s hard to believe.

Yet I do feel differently about myself now too.  How can a person lose 200 pounds and not feel different?  How can a person run way more miles than they ever thought they could and not feel like a badass?  I ran 26.2 miles, a full marathon.  I never want to do it again, but I did it.  How does that change a person?

I would like to lose the 20 pounds I’ve gained, but that is not the same journey I started back in 2013.  I was forty-nine years old.  I was super obese.  I had sleep apnea and I struggled just to get off the couch.  That little fat girl is still in my head, but she is no longer a reality.  Today my journey is much more about health.

I lost the weight.  Now I want to get healthy and stay that way.  It might be two sides of the same coin, but they are not exactly alike.  For me, it’s like I needed to get the fat out of the way so I could figure out how I really want to live.

I want to talk about the weight loss journey, but I also want to talk about the new journey.  My quest for good health without the focus on the scale.  I’m trying to free my mind for that one because it’s what really counts.