Paul Tales

June 2011-My heaviest weight; my best eating year ;-)

Nearly a year ago I was crouched in front of my bathroom sink having a quasi-panic attack in front of two of my friends. I was supposed to be in church, meeting a nice Christian boy with such infallible qualities as sobriety, gainful employment, and home ownership. I, in turn, had my own womanly treasures to offer: personality and cooking skills (which usually translates to 'fat girl' to most guys anyway). At the time I was actually quite alright with my list of qualities. I've been a long-time veteran of fad diets, weight loss surgery, and gym donations (I call them donations because to use the term membership would imply active participation on my part). I had spent the better part of the year with a "Screw it" mentality and was basically eating and couching my way to a solid 250ish lbs. And when you're 5' 2, the only reason the scale should ever read 250 is when you pull another equally short friend up onto it with you for kicks and giggles. But as I mentioned before, I just didn't feel like caring anymore. So I didn't. Or at least I pushed caring to the back of my mind behind my chocolate ice cream recipe and my memorization of "The Jabberwocky".



June 2011-These are three of my favorite people in the world

Here's the funny thing about being set up with the mystery bachelor (Let's call him Paul). About 6 hours before we were supposed to meet, I woke up feeling not so good about my list of qualifications. I also came to the realization that when you're 5'2 and weighing twice as much as you should, the average American guy isn't going to look at you and eagerly anticipate your witty commentary or baked ziti. His thoughts are more or less "Yikes." And in the forefront of my mind I kept picturing Paul's look of disappointment and I just couldn't take it (Sidenote: I concede that it was a smidge wrong of me to not give the poor guy the benefit of the doubt). By the time my friends found me crouched in the bathroom, I came to two important conclusions: 1. That I could not bring myself to face Paul's disappointment and 2. I was not happy being fat.

At this point, I'd like to state something important. Not every fat person is unhappy...just like not every skinny person is happy. I'm not a wholly depressed, sad person. I have a pretty full, awesome life. The purpose of the Paul story isn't to state that being fat=a miserable, dateless existence. I've known many heavier people whose amazing personalities and humor transcend body image. They're happy and whole just as they are. And there's a big part of me (no pun intended) that wishes that this blog was coming from the point of view of a girl who's big and proud of it. Instead, this is a blog about someone who recognized the cause of her fears and insecurities, and is currently in the process of changing that. I can't be a happy fat girl but I have nothing but respect, admiration, and the greenest of envy for anyone who is or was. The Paul tale is just the beginning of what has proved to be a very long, challenging, arduous, exhausting, interesting and rewarding process for me. It's also pretty funny at points, too.

I never did meet Paul, but he's not really the point of my doing all this;he's just the impetus. I had put myself in between a rock and a hard place; I felt completely afraid and helpless...and yet my situation was also entirely within my own control.

So here's this blog. I'd like to point out right away that I am not a success story by any means. Dear God, I'm still about 80ish pounds away from my goal weight. Let's call this a succeeding story instead. I still have terrible eating habits and the weight loss element itself is painfully slow (which is why the Biggest Loser should be called the Biggest Liar). I am trying very hard to appreciate the glacial pace of my progress because I'm hoping that when I've met my goals, I'll be all the more proud of the accomplishment. Mainly the pace sucks. There, I said it.