Layers of myself

I was at the barn last week and the (very) thin barn owner was asking me how things were going post-op. She was telling me how she started some new thyroid meds and dropped 4lbs in a week and now weighs like 134 or something but still wants to get down to 129. Sorry if you're reading this and you weight 134 and would rather be 129 but my morbidly-obese self doesn't have a whole lot of patience for that type of conversation. It's like the girls in middle school who always complained that they would get fat if they ate one cookie or obsessed about wearing a size 4 instead of a 2. Please, never let me become those people.

But the conversation did leave me with something. I mentioned that I'd lost 30lbs but don't see it and still feel every bit as large as I was 30 lbs ago, which is true except sometimes my legs look really skinny to me and I curse losing any weight from my muscular legs instead of my fat abs, but anyway... So she said that it wasn't as though I'd lost any huge chunk from anywhere but rather that I'd lost a small layer all over. Maybe one inch, she said. And I thought about it and realized that it's true. I'm still the same shape I was 3 months ago and none of my problem areas have just disappeared, but I've gone down a couple of clothing sizes and have noticed myself just taking up marginally less space than before in places where space is a huge commodity like airplane seats.

I have been thinking about this concept, that with each few pounds I lose, I am stripping away a layer and I also realized that I am stripping off years. Since I've never been thin, the only thing that separates how I am now from how I was at, say, age 15 or 18 or 20 is the degree of fatness. I remember weighing 220 at some point in the far, far, past. I might have been 14? I definitely don't remember any number on a scale below that, so I don't know what I'll see or feel like or be when I get there but the journey from 273 to 241 where I am today has been like jumping back to college. When I was a junior in college I weighed in the 240s and I was really active. Did aerobics a few times a week and rode with my college team and competed on the weekends. I remember feeling really good and capable and confident and seeing myself in the mirror as hot lots of times when I was that age/weight. So now I'm back there, and it's great. I rode Helo last night and continued to marvel out how "easy" it was. Easy to get on, easy to post, even after more than a month off from riding my muscles don't feel like they used to and I know that even though it's not visible outwardly to me, that I am feeling the difference of 30 lbs. I also cannot wait to feel how it feels to be even smaller on his back and regain balance and coordination I used to have when I did things like ride bareback and jump.

The lowest I've been in recent memories is the 230s and that was the summer I was a counselor at fat camp (2002.) By the end of the summer I might have been 235 but I specifically remember never getting under 230 cause I always just got stuck there. Well, I'm 12 lbs away from beating that and with the help of my band (which is getting filled tomorrow!!!) I will be there in 4-5 weeks. I barely remember what it looks like or feels like to be in the 220s and like I said, I have not been there since I was 14, if that. I'm 26 now, so getting into the 220s will be like zooming back in history 12 years. It'll be like peeling back the layers of body and mind to be back in that place - yet not - because I cannot erase the 12 years of experience and growth that has come along with everything else that's accumulated over time.

I wonder what this will do to me, or for me, emotionally. I wonder if 12 pounds from now I will find myself feeling as I did when I was 14. And how far back do I have to go to get to a place where I need to be? To get back to 150 lbs? I might be 10 years old by that time. My goal is to be at 200 6 months post-op, give or take a couple of weeks. Since I don't remember where I was when I hit 200 from the other direction, I can only guess maybe 12? And, here's the scary part... I believe that I have long since solved the emotional issues that led me to use food as a comfort in life back when I was a kid. I undoubtedly did. I most certainly did not get to be this heavy by not abusing food and self medicating with it. But that's not me anymore. It always felt so hopeless to get rid of the weight that I allowed myself to adopt bad eating patterns but I've learned in the past 2 months that I can fully and honestly say that food is just food to me and I don't care about it emotionally anymore. But when I step back in time and reinhabit the body that I had 10 years ago or more, will that change? I don't know why it would but something on a deep emotional level feels like it might. I am prepared that it's a struggle I may have to deal with as I regress.