Something is changing in how others see me…

Back in November I made a decision.  It was one that has changed my life in a lot of ways – in some ways I’m still uncovering.  The biggest unexpected change was the weightloss, and I’m honestly not sure how I feel about that.

I have had a long battle with both my physical and mental health.  With Fibromyalgia and it’s host of associated issues (IBS, TMJ, and others) my body has rarely allowed me the freedom I crave.  But it had gotten to the point where I had to do something.  It hurt to move, it still hurts to move…  but it hurt laboriously so.  I couldn’t keep up with my daughter, and I had far more bad moments than good.

Now!  It’s important to note, that while my body may not have FELT good physically, I loved my absolutely FLABulous self.  I loved my curves, my bends, my plump, fantastically round self.  I was glorious in my fatness. 

This was not about losing weight.  This was not about fitting into societies view of what can be considered PURDY.  In fact, my desire to do better for myself had NOTHING to do with how I looked.  In all honesty I was shocked when my clothes stopped fitting.

I don’t know what I expected…  honestly.  I mean.  I knew my body would change somewhat.  I figured my clothes would fit better and that I’d lose some weight.  But I figured I’d probably drop from my 188 lbs to about 160 and that things would just fit nicer.  The end. 

I was working out daily for 45 minutes to about an hour for several months and tracking what I was eating, making healthier choices.  I never cut out any foods.  If I wanted it I ate it (and still do).  But I don’t need to eat an entire bar of chocolate to get that marvelous high that comes from allowing a perfect square of chocolate to melt away in your mouth, it’s gooeyness spreading through every crevice filling your senses with it’s delectable self.  In fact, I eat between one and three squares of chocolate a day.  LOL  I love it – especially when it has something salty in it too, like a peanut or pretzel or popcorn.  Mmmmm….  so I’m not about to deny myself that pleasure.

Even now that I’ve moved into what I consider “maintenance” mode, I am still losing weight.  And I truly am not sure how I feel about it.  Like I mentioned.  I LOVED my fat self.  Fat is beautiful.  This body of mine now seems strange and odd, and I’m not entirely sure it’s mine or how to embrace it the way I did before.  I’m sure I’ll get there…  but I haven’t yet.

It’s an odd thing.  Being secure in yourself.  Loving yourself…  and then changing so much.  I’m still FLABulous on the inside – but people look at me differently now.  In the span of the 20 minutes it took me to drop the girl off at the library for book club until I walked home and started blogging I was checked out by two people.  And, okay…  I got checked out before too.  And it was the nice subtle “yeah she looks hot” nod I’d get, respectful, but with a little hint of the good kinda bad.  I got one of those today.  I like those, I think most people do.  But today I got checked out in the creepy way that makes you want to rush home, lock your door, and have a searing hot shower to wash the scary grossness away.

I didn’t worry for my safety or care how others saw me when I was bigger.  Now, someone like the guy in his classic car today…  who stops close enough to the curb that he could have hit you, and then drools over you, memorizing your body and the way it moves as you cross the street in front of him, locking you away in his horrifying spank bank?  Now people like that make me feel fear.  And that is SOOO not okay.

In a quest to get healthier, to keep up with my seven year old (yeah, she turned seven this July… mind-blowing, right?), to play and run, to go on hikes, and carry arms full of treasures, and backs full of growing girl…  and to do it all at the same time.  Somewhere in these awesome wonderful goals I have also opened myself up to those who leer, ogle, and make one feel small and afraid.  It’s a pretty shitty thing to realize about our society.  And I knew it all along.  I had just figured that things were getting better, but they aren’t.  They really aren’t.  They aren’t better at all.

So here I am, 45 pounds less of a person than I was before, feeling things I don’t remember how to feel.  And it’s time to walk back to the library to pick up my daughter from her book club.  I need time to process, but I’m a Mom… time to process is one thing I don’t have.  I’ll continue.  Because that’s what I do.  And I may not be as FLABulous as I once was, and people may have started looking at me differently, devaluing my personhood pushing me into a little spank-bank in their brain, but I’m still the same fabulous me.  I just need to learn how to live within this new body and appreciate her for what she is… because who she is hasn’t changed.