Archive | July 2018

Size Matters

Jul27

 

All jokes aside… does size matter?

According to Racked.Com, 68% of American women wear size 14 — and above. And that number is steadily increasing.

The average woman is 5’3” (a mere inch taller than me), weighs 168.5 pounds, and wears a size 16-18.

I find these stats surprising; not because of whatever research resulted in these numbers (and its validity), but because, according to Racked, I’m pretty darned average these days. I’m a little bit shorter, I still weigh a bit more than their average number, but I actually have a few clothing pieces around that say size 14 on the tag.

Normal? Average? Me?

I have a cedar chest that holds the largest size clothing I ever wore. That includes a pair of jeans in size 32. At that time, that was the largest size the clothing store Catherine’s sold. I was absolutely horrified when I realized that — and yet, there I was.

And here I am. I’m thrilled to death to be under conventional plus sizes; regardless of how the industry looks at it, I go by what the clothing stores generally offer: up to 18 in regular sizes, plus sizes in 16 and up. (Racked considers everything 14 and up to be “plus” sizing, whether it’s marked that way or not.) Not because that number on the tag really means anything — other than price, availability, and style. For whatever reason, a lot of stores still consider anyone in plus sizes as dowdy, old, and shapeless.

The number on the tag doesn’t mean much to me. I know vanity sizing is a big thing; what used to be a size 14 years ago is probably a 10, now. It sells clothing when people think they’re in a smaller size, which just goes to show what a mental game size really is.

Right? RRRiiiigggghhhttt????!

Me, I’m more concerned with the actual measurements of the clothing. Like pretty much every other woman in existence, I have clothing in three or four sizes and they fit the same. There’s not much in the way of consistency. That’s not my point, though.

I don’t think of myself as average. As normal. There may never come a day when I am totally free of the mental idea of being a large sized woman, no matter how much weight I eventually lose. Maybe that’s a good thing, in the long run; I’ve stopped flogging myself for my clothing size, but a little reality check keeps me honest. I know when my clothes get snug that I’d better do something to keep the situation under control.

There are times when I feel like I’m in disguise, passing as a normal person. As if I’m really someone else, and if people look hard enough, they’ll see the real me instead of the poser in front of them. I sometimes feel as if I need to bring up my history as a morbidly obese woman as a way to establish myself. Maybe even apologize. What for, I have no idea.

These days, I make a big effort to fight that part of me that feels like a fraud in this body. Every day, I feel a bit more like I imagine everyone else feels; it just took me a lot more effort to get here. I often take a deep breath, remind myself that I don’t owe anyone an explanation for my existence, and push forward. I am who I am; take me or leave me. After all, we all have a history.

So yeah, in a different way, size matters.

(PS: hubby will be thrilled that I’ve included yet another country song.)

 

A Change Is Gonna Come

Jul21

 

Hopefully, you know, by now, that this blog is not as much about weight loss as it is about gaining health. In light of that, I celebrate what many in the diet world call “NSV” — or Non-Scale Victory.

In my opinion, NSVs are more important than actual weight loss stats. A few I’ve had over the last couple of months:

  • I feared my knee replacement surgery might be delayed because of elevated blood pressure. To my surprise, my blood pressure was entirely in normal ranges, and obviously, I had surgery.

  • Part of my mile walk yesterday.

    Before surgery, the farthest I managed to walk in one stretch was about a mile. It took me about a year to get to that point. Roughly seven weeks after surgery, I woke up yesterday and walked a mile.

  • I’ve got plenty of really great goals for the rest of this year. I’ve got a lot of work on my plate, a dear friend and I are taking a trip and we’re having a blast planning it, another great friend and I will keep our annual trek to a cabin at the lake to write (this annual tradition has become one of my favorite times), my husband and I are planning to camp during Thanksgiving break, I have a concert to rehearse for, and a bunch of events strewn out over the course of the fall. And it’s only July. There was a day not long ago when I wouldn’t really have been able to consider most of these things.
  • Thanks to working my way down through clothing I have kept until it fit, I’ve now got more drawer and closet space than I’ve ever had.
  • People who don’t know my history with weight actually treat me like a normal person. There is a huge difference in how people treat the morbidly obese from the merely overweight, and at some point, I’ve crossed into normal territory. (Physically, if never mentally!)
  • I no longer feel as if I must explain myself to people that don’t know I spent so much of my life as a morbidly obese and physically limited person. For one thing, if they don’t know, that’s fine with me; I am who I am regardless of my physical appearance. For another, it’s really no one’s business unless, for instance, there’s a medical reason to discuss it. I rather like walking through life as a normal person.
  • Back when I lost weight years ago, I felt like I had a point to prove; and not just to other people, to show them they were wrong about me, but to myself. I never quite lost the idea that I was different from everyone else. I don’t know that I ever will entirely lose that; it’s important that I always carry the lessons I’ve learned with me, but I don’t have so much of a chip on my shoulder these days. I’m much more concerned with my own journey and not so concerned with what other people think.
  • Better clothes. 😛

It’s easy to get lost in physical stats; how much weight, how many inches, how big of a drop in clothing size. The diet “experts” will use these as indicators of success, but the longer I am on this journey, the more solidly I believe that this process is about the changes made and the resulting improvement in quality of life. After all, no one knows my weight, how big my waist is, or what size I wear, unless I tell them. But just about everyone can tell a difference in desire, attitude, and ability.

This journey should be about enjoying life as a healthier person, looking toward the future, and less about self-flogging over small goals not met in this moment. It does you no good to physically improve but mentally slide backward or become obsessed. With effort, change will come.

 

Sometimes It Rains

Jul12

 

I admit that I am pretty horrible at self-care. When I actually do take time, I usually feel guilty for doing it — which, of course, helps nothing.

Between an active recovery from surgery and enduring seemingly endless hammering outside my house, I really needed a break; some time that wasn’t devoted to getting to or from physical therapy, recovery, or listening to construction workers put siding up. I have a ton of work to do and I work from home. I’m one of those people that work best when I have some peace and quiet.

So we took off for the lake, despite regular daily temps in the high 90’s, a drought in the area, and a fire ban at the state park where we chose to camp. We can cook, but that’s the only allowable fire. Honestly, I wasn’t sure this would be any less stressful than the previous several weeks, although I was prepared to spend a good part of every day tackling work projects.

Sometimes, though, when you’re going through a drought and you need some mental recovery, you have to make it rain.

Along with the work, I’ve had time to breathe in, breathe out — and move on. Enjoy a breeze off the lake. Watch geese and ducks on the water. Listen to mockingbirds call to each other in the morning. Watch the clouds float across the sky and reflect down across the lake.

Great Blue Heron by our campsite after the storm.

 

Taking time to do these things has allowed me to get my thoughts in order for the many things I face over the months to come; lots of work, quite a few events, and eventually, another surgery before year’s end, as well as a new addition to the family. Taking a breather means I have more of me to give to all of these things, and I’ve already been making great strides this week.

I wish I could remember this lesson; I’m much more likely to run myself completely out of gas and then beat myself up for not meeting expectations. This does no one good; not those I serve and certainly not myself. Restoration is vital to growth, and the older I get, the more important it becomes.

Late yesterday, a storm blew up while we were at the lake. My husband had to hold down the dining canopy to keep it from flying off while I held on to an awning support to the camper. Our dog was inside, scared out of her wits; just before I came out, I felt the whole camper rock. Granted, it’s a small camper, but that’s never an easy feeling. We had to wait the storm out and then clean up afterward, but now that the storm is gone, we’re left with moderate temperatures and beautiful weather on the lake. The dog is happy, again, and the sky is blue.

It’s better to take the break and let the rains come than to build up to a storm. Simply put, there are times when we just have to make it rain.

 

Coming Home

Jul5

 

It’s easy to forget the pain.

We all do it. As a woman and a mother, I’m convinced that if more women remembered the discomfort of pregnancy and the pain of childbirth, there would be a lot more only children in this world. But as time goes by, we forget.

The same holds true for my knee surgery. It was only a little over 5 weeks ago, but I set the date for my other knee to be replaced in my follow-up appointment earlier this week. Just like any other choice we willingly make to go through pain, for whatever reason, we do it because there’s a promise of something better on the other side.

Back to the familiar and wonderful feeling of being in control.

Despite going through many years of often excruciating knee pain, that memory is already fading — perhaps because it was temporarily replaced by post-op pain and healing. Before, I knew there was only a limited amount of improvement I could possibly see; now, every day brings a noticeable improvement.

Forgetting pain is a good and natural thing. Forgetting the lessons, though? The things you swear to yourself you’ll never, ever do, again? No. I caused irreparable harm by allowing myself to become so overweight that I damaged parts of my body. Typically, people who need total knee replacements are at least 10 to 15 years older than I am, and my doctor first brought it up with me roughly 12 years ago.

We’re humans, though, and we often tend to forget the lessons learned in times of stress and return to our previous norms. So when, by necessity, I had to change my normal way of eating because of surgery, and I gained weight because of it, I feared that part of me that might see that as a return to normal — the normal I knew for most of my adult life.

I found myself yearning for the feeling I have when I am totally in control. That’s where I feel the best. It’s my comfort zone, and where my body and brain moves toward. The best part? That’s the normal I’ve come to know over the last nearly five years, rather than the destructive normal that came before.

Sometimes, the lessons learned aren’t enough to keep us from repeating mistakes of the past, but every day, this feels a bit more like coming home. The path to home isn’t far away, now, at all.