Day 5...Have you flipped your switch?

Let's get today out of the way. I didn't get to go to the gym. Car troubles and registration issues forced me to take a 3 mile walk and do one hundred situps at home. No worries though. Tomorrow it is back to the gym with a vengeance. bwahhhaaaaaaaaahaaaaaaaaaa....
1480 calories today. Tasty ones.

So, I was reading (as I always do) Jack's blog. He talked about seeing things differently. For him it took a weekend. For me, It happened in an instant.
It was at Build a Bear, May 4th, 2009. I remember the day. I even remember what I was wearing. I remember How I wore my hair. What shoes I had on.
One minute the world was this....



I see the cup...

The next minute...it was the faces.

Like the world suddenly reversed itself, and I was left standing there. Finally fully aware of what I had let myself become. One minute I was just me. Sure, I was overweight, but I was happy. I had a husband, two children and a nice home. I was an intelligent woman who had her stuff together.
Then I looked up and saw this fat woman in the mirror. I thought, wow is she fat.
It was me. shock
That.. was me. flip
That was what I looked like to the outside world. No matter how I felt, or thought on the inside. My outside would always dictate other's first impressions of me.

You can say that it doesn't matter, but it does.

Statistically speaking, fat people are paid less.
Fat people are viewed as less intelligent.
Fat people are more often than not, ignored or laughed at.
Is it Fair? No.
What in life is fair?
I was limiting myself because I had decided long ago to never tell myself no when it came to food.
I didn't shoot heroin. I didn't beat my children. These things were unthinkable.

If I can't control what I put into my own mouth, what did I really control?

I made jokes about not wearing corduroy cause it could cause a fire.
Why was eating myself into an early grave funny?
Why had I allowed myself to think it was some sort of Joke?
Why did I think so little of my relationship with my husband, that I would take the girl he fell in love with... The slim, fit girl that he had fallen for, and turned myself into whatever it was I had become?
Seeing myself as I truly was was extremely painful. I had spent years hiding from cameras, wearing loose, baggy clothing, avoiding swimming pools and swimsuits. Telling everyone I was 'too busy' to go to the park.
These were Lies to avoid facing the truth.
I know some of you don't like Jillian, but there is one thing she said that I completely agree with.
Self deprecation is useless.
I used self deprecation to deflect my reality.
If you are doing this, stop doing it.
If you are telling yourself that even though you are one hundred or more pounds overweight, that it isn't 'that bad'. You are lying to yourself.
If eating crap is funny to you, even though you are giving your kids a crappy example, killing yourself slowly, and possibly embarrassing your significant other...what is funny about that?
I know this is hard and harsh, but let us look at reality for a moment.

If your husband was a drunk whose habits affected his ability to participate in family life, caused him to make excuses as to why he couldn't take the kids to the park, couldn't make love, caused him to neglect his appearance. Would you love him "unconditionally?"
Overeating is voluntary.
I am talking to women now. We want our husbands to remain faithfull.
What I did was 'advertise' one thing, and then fifteen years later...delivered something else.
This gives us room to grow yes. But it wasn't fair to him.
If he remained faithful to me, then for the rest of his life, he would have to make love to a morbidly obese woman who didn't care about her appearance, who couldn't even clip her toenails. And he would have to just put up with this because he was too honorable to leave. That would be it.
Because I couldn't say no to food, this was going to be his life.
Seeing It this way, puts things into a different perspective...doesn't it?
I want my husband to make love to only me, but then I gave him a me I doubt he would have been attracted to.
After I woke up, I apologized for letting myself go so far.

Being wide awake is painful. I stood in line at the grocery store the day after my flip had switched, in an agony of embarrassment. As if I were walking through there naked. I couldn't believe how fat I had let myself get.
As stupid as it sounds, I knew that other people could SEE ME.
I wasn't invisible. I was very visible.
There was no way to fix the situation I was in except to start.
But once that flip has switched, you cannot unswitch it. I can't go back to sleep. I truly see myself, and I can no longer ignore it.
I get frustrated, yes.
But not the kind of frustration that says "well, screw it...I'll binge'.
It's more the kind of frustration that wants this fat gone NOW. I have to reel it in and tell myself that even if I exercised ten hours a day for the next year, it still takes time to take the weight off.

Food will not make you happy. Food will not make you less lonely.
Food could kill your marriage, kill your relationship with your children...or teach them bad habits. Food could kill you. It's no laughing matter.
Like Jack said, If I could put this in a bottle I would give it away for free.
I would.
Kind of like the matrix, you can take whichever pill you want, just don't fool yourself about the one you are taking.
I hope everyone is on and ready to go, I truly do. I hope I don't hurt feelings with this. I just know that until I saw the choices I was making for what they truly were, instead of some lifelong fat joke...I didn't change anything. I didn't see anything.
I am rooting for you.
Hugs,
Chris