Wednesday Whine
I’m tired of analyzing and reanalyzing everything I eat.
Does this have enough protein? What are the ingredients? How many calories does this have? Will this prevent me from seeing a loss? Is this going to help me feel full for a while? Is this something the Boy will eat? Will this food and my band play well together? Is this more than a cup? Is there a better option? When did I eat last? What did I eat last?
I think about the future, about a lifetime of this almost continual debate going on in my brain, and it feels very bleak and depressing.
In the before time, when I felt destined to a life of obesity, I didn’t have to think about what I ate. I didn’t worry about Every. Single. Calorie. I was going to be fat anyway, did it really matter what I put in my body? I had complete freedom to ingest anything I wanted.
I didn’t step on the scale each Thursday, trying to anticipate which number would glow up at me. I didn’t feel a twinge of disappointment when the number was larger than the previous week’s or because my loss wasn’t what I wanted it to be.
When you’re a size 26/28, there’s not a lot of clothing variety. If I wanted to go into a brick and mortar store to look around (which rarely ever happened), I would go to Torrid or Lane Bryant. After Sunday’s Lane Bryant expedition, I realized with some panic that I wasn’t going to be able to shop there much longer since I now wear their smallest size. That means that I fit into “normal people” clothes now and that there are approximately half a billion stores in every mall where I can go to shop. I don’t know where to start and part of me feels embarrassed at the thought of stepping into them. There’s no way in hell those skinny people clothes will fit me! I don’t want to have to ask for a dressing room and then leave the store empty handed because I couldn’t get anything on.
What it ultimately boils down to is that I still feel like the fat girl. I know that I’m close to a “normal” size now, but I still feel like I did 83 pounds ago. I know that I’m much thinner, that I can fit in smaller clothes, that my knees don’t continually hurt any more, and that I have started to develop collar bones, but I look in the mirror and see the same Banded Girl that I saw last May. It feels like all of this effort is getting me nowhere; that I’m agonizing over every food decision and faithfully weighing myself each week for nothing.
I wonder if my brain will ever catch up.
September 1st, 2010 at 4:41 pm
I think I could have written this myself today (well, you know…minus the whole fitting in the regular clothes part!) I found myself thinking “I’m tired of thinking so much and convincing myself not to eat that brownie. I’m tired of not just having croutons on my salad because they taste good. I’m tired of thinking about all of it. I’ll never feel skinny or normal anyways.” I identified part of this as PMS but I do think it will always be a challenge for us.
September 2nd, 2010 at 10:00 am
Yeah, I think it will always be a struggle. I just want to be normal, damn it!
September 1st, 2010 at 5:25 pm
It is almost uncanny that I read this – I was out shopping last weekend and had the same fear about buying “normal” clothes. What I thought would be an exciting event is actually very unnerving to me. What size will I wear? Will I be bigger than I think? or smaller? and wondering if people are looking at me wondering “why is that fat chick in this dept” when I realize I’m not that “fat chick” anymore. I”m only six months out from my surgery (RenY) but I think that is a brain-catching-up-to-body thing that takes a long time. I have a friend who is a year out and she still struggles with these same issues. Our bodies may be thinner but we’re still the same girl inside.
September 2nd, 2010 at 10:05 am
I think it’s harder for you RNYers than it is for people like me who have lost a lot more slowly. I mean, I had surgery 15-16 months ago and have lost about 85 pounds. I’m sure that your rate of loss has been much faster than mine–more to wrap your brain around in a shorter amount of time.
We’ll get it figured out, though :)
September 7th, 2010 at 8:46 pm
[...] brought up everything I wrote about last Wednesday and then some–how I’ve been feeling miserable physically, how I’m tired of being [...]