This is from my Livejournal on 12/29/09. This was a private post that I eventually released to a few close friends.
Being fat is no less a part of me than having brown hair. I cannot remember life without it. My earliest memories revolve around being "the fat kid" in school. I remember swimming at summer camp and being made fun of because I made bigger splashes than the other girls. I remember being 8 years old at horse camp and not being able to share riding clothes with the rest of the girls who swapped them back and forth for show day. I was too large. My mom, dad, both sets of grandparents, and all of my auntsm uncles and cousins have struggled with weight. Some have won, some have not, and some have developed eating disorders. To say that my family has food issues would be an understatement. In my family, your worth is often based on your weight and because I was the largest of them all, I also became the highest achiever in other areas. I made straight A's in school, took advanced classes, left Alabama for a world class university, graduated with honors, and all the while remained fat despite all my attempts to take control and succeed in that area of life as much as I had been able to in others.
My first memory of consciously attempted weight loss was when my mom and I did weight watchers together, followed shortly thereafter by the atkins diet. I was 8 years old. But even before that, food was constantly an issue. My mom used it as a punishment and reward, and overall a means of control. If I was good or if she was in a good mood we could have ice cream. If I was not, or she was feeling particularly fat herself that day, I'd be told I could have fruit. My relationship with food got messed up very early on in this way. I also wasn't "athletic" as deemed by the school gym teacher. I couldn't run like the other kids, always picked last for teams, and the only thing I ever took comfort in was my horseback riding.
My entire life up through college was just more of the same. I definitely felt shameful about my body, I can admit I felt hideous and unlovable just because I was fat. And again, attempts to lose weight just didn't work. My weight loss/gain cycle is as follows. I would get very motivated to lose weight, join a program, follow it to the letter for a month, 2 months, 3 months, usually 3 months was the maximum I could stand. When I say follow it to the letter, I'm not kidding. I would not cheat and I would count calories, carbs, fat, whatever the rules, and exercise to the extreme. To give a couple of examples:
When I was 16 our physical education teacher gave us all copies of a meal and exercise plan. It was restricted to 1600 calories a day for the first couple of weeks, going down to 1400 and then 1200 by the end of the 6 week period. When you made it through 6 weeks you were supposed to repeat it until you lost as much as you needed to. I followed this meal plan and exercised with both cardio (eliptical machine) and strength training about 6 hours a week (I would go straight from 2 hour gym class to 1 hour with my own personal trainer that my dad paid for) and on top of that jogged at least a mile everyday around my neighborhood. Often I would jog 2. At the end of a few months of this I had lost a little bit of weight. MAYBE 20 lbs, but all the while I was miserable, tired, hungry... and it was so frustrating. I gave up the plan and went back to "normal" and within a month I had gained back what I'd lost and more.
When I was 18, the summer before college, I went to fat camp in Massachusettes. It was called Camp Kingsmont and I was a counselor but I followed the camper's diet 100%. At camp, from 8am till 10pm or later, we didn't stop moving. We hiked, ran, played soccer, swam, rode horses (the class I taught which means lots of running around the ring with the little kids) and on top of that we were limited to 1200 calories a day plus a salad buffet with no dressings. I think I lost 30lbs in the 2 months I was there but again, it was not a way of life that could be sustained when I entered college that fall. It wasn't even a way of life that could be sustained unless I'd continued to live at camp for the rest of my life. Within 2 weeks of starting college, none of my new clothes fit me anymore.
When I was 20 I decided to do "Medifast" which my mom had done when I was younger. The plan was you can eat these pouches that are about 100 calories each, so you get some milkshakes, some bars, that kind of thing. Overall, you're eating 900 calories a day but if you're not being supervised by a physician then you are supposed to eat 1 lean protein and vegetable meal for dinner to give you about 1400 calories a day. I followed this religiously for a month and lost 17 lbs. Then something happened with my apartment and my living situation became unstable and I couldn't continue it (couldn't find the dedication with the crisis I was in at that time) so I tried to just eat healthy and of course gained back everything I'd lost plus more.
These are only 3 examples of my major attempts to lose weight. They are they only times I can remember success, if you can call it that. I've done South Beach, Atkins, Weight Watchers, Nutri-System, counted calories, counted carbs, taken Xenical, Hydroxycut, tried to be anorexic and bullemic as a teenager but it didn't work for more than a day and I never could actually get myself to throw up. I've been riding horses (which includes hours of barn chores and heavy lifting) since I was 8 years old or younger... I worked out with a personal trainer twice a week for 2 of my high school years, I took up jogging and got as far as 3 miles at my most fit (but still not anywhere near thin.) I rode my bicycle 20 minutes each way to work and back for nearly a year while living in Miami, plus rode it everywhere else around town that I didn't need a car for. I've taken kickboxing, step aerobics, circuit training, tai-bo, yoga, latin dance, swing dance, and country line dancing, and not just for a week or two. I've done all of these for months at a time, often on top of each other so I was exercising 4 days a week or more and always trying to "watch what I ate" and I've never been able to lose anything without nearly starving myself and exercising to exhaustion. I know that someone reading this will just think that I've done it all wrong. Moderation is key, right? I should stop with the extreme stuff and just stick with something simple and slow. Tried that too, my whole, entire life has been one failed attempt at just "eating right and exercising" and what works for apparently everyone else only causes me to gain more and more weight. In fact, each time I take up a new exercise activity, I'm even hungrier than normal and even when I try to focus that hunger just on lean proteins, it never fails - I gain weight from being active.
For the past 6 months I have been eating as much as I can in fresh fruits and vegetables, organic stuff, whole grains, etc. For breakfast most days I have a shake made from whey protein, soy milk, and skim milk. For lunch I have a salad with spinach, romaine, some cheese, and cottage cheese, and sometimes a lean protein on it. For snacks I have fruit or whole grain sprouted bread with lowfast cheese melted on it. For dinners I cook on the grill, make wholewheat pasta with turkey sauce, or a caserole or something in the crock pot. I don't sit around eating junk food all the time, though I have my moments. Yes, there are many moments when I just can't bother to care because what does it matter? I will always be hungry, I will always be fat, and I will always fail at losing weight. I have also been continuing to ride my horse, my bicycle, and took up rock climbing with my boyfriend. Over the years I've learned that I'm actually a lot more athletic than I ever would have imagined and in a way that's the primary factor behind why I'm seeking surgery now. I have long since accepted that normal diets (and even extreme/abnormal ones) don't work for me. I had a series of relationships between age 20-22 that allowed me to come out of my shell and embrace my body as beautiful the way it is. I really believe that too. I look in the mirror and most of the time think I'm pretty hot and sexy. Like every female, I have my days when I don't but for the most part I do. And that might sound like I'm delusional but really, I do love my body and if I didn't feel like I had to, then I wouldn't want to change it one bit. So why do I "have to" ? I feel trapped. I love the things I do, I love riding my horse and bike and rock climbing with my boyfriend and I want to take things to higher levels, maybe become competitive or build higher endurance. And I just can't in this body, no matter how much I want to do a lot of things. My body is holding me back from having the most full life I can. Intellectually, I'm fine. I have a great relationship and job and really can't complain, but I'm really ready to shed all this baggage from the past including the physical embodiment of it, and move forward. I don't think losing weight will "fix" everything but really, I don't have too much that needs fixing. I have by all measures a wonderful and fulfilling life, I just think I'd be happier and healthier in the long run if I could lose some weight and if you've read this far, you know that it just isn't going to happen for me without a more dramatic step.
The first time I thought about weight loss surgery was when I was 18. The NYU endocrinologist I went to for my PCOS told me that I would be a good candidate. My parents nixed that right away...I was too young, hadn't tried it enough on my own yet, and they thought it was too dangerous. Now I'm glad that I didn't have gastric bypass, I think it would have been too extreme to do at age 18 but lap band is a lot safer and the technology has improved in the past nearly-8 years. I look all around me and I see people being successful at their weight loss and I think I'm ready to accept that I can be too. Maybe not through traditional routes but I am willing to do what it takes when I'm given the chance to do something that will really work for me.
