Not having to worry about my weight, other than maintaining it (I completely admit to freaking out if the scale goes up by more than half of a pound; I swear gastric bypass surgery has turned me into someone who is obsessed with numbers), is so foreign to me. So many people are telling me not to worry about those last seven pounds, that they don’t mean much, I’ve come so far, and I’m so close, do I really need to force myself to cover that very last little stretch? The answer is YES. Yes, I do, because that’s all I know how to do. That’s all I’ve done since I was thirteen years old. Worry and obsess over every last bite. Now on top of obsessing over the “not-high-in-protein-therefore-worthless” stuff, I obsess over protein (duh), vitamins, and even calcium (I take supplements, but this stupid non-healing stress fracture has me wondering…).

On most days I’m very happy with myself. I’m happy with my sizes, even if the number on the scale doesn’t quite coincide (in my head, anyway) with them:

• Tops: medium or large
• Bras: 34D/DD
• Underwear: medium
• Pants: 12/13
• (Random addition: I have a “choker” that now hangs very, very loosely around my neck. Also? I have a choker collar that I once was barely able to snap at the loosest snap; now it’s on the tightest with room to spare. My beloved “spinning” thumb ring was retired a year and a half ago, and the sterling silver heart ring that is loose on my thumb once resided rather snugly on my pinkie finger.)

Then I have other days where I lament my thunder thighs and Polack¹ calves. I hate my upper arms, but I know that’s loose skin, not flab, so I loathe them for the right reason, if that makes sense. I’m not too happy with my stomach, either, but considering it went through a lot of weight gain, a lot of weight loss, and two pregnancies + one c-section in between, well, I have to give credit where credit is due. And cover that shit up and smooth it out in Spanx.

I have physically lost 163.8 lbs, but mentally I’m still dragging a lot of that weight, and my associations with that weight, around with me.

But. And this is a big but, because it’s still so utterly foreign for me to compliment myself… I think I looked damned good last night, flabby tummy aside:

(Sorry for the flash fail!)

Yes, those are jeggings. Don’t hate – it was an outdoor Halloween party and I was not about to freeze my ass off in 40° temps with nothing more than fishnets on my legs! And isn’t my walking cast sexy?

For those who may not have read my blog two years ago, here’s the “old” me, the 331 lb me (and Puff, who was 13 then):

(I put on that hoodie today, and holy shit I was positively SWIMMING in it!)

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• Irritability: much more irritated
• Sensitivity: much more sensitive
• Breasts: perpetually sore and achy for a good three weeks of the month
• Menstrual cramps: bad enough that I now have prescription muscle relaxants; and I occasionally take half of a [prescribed] pain pill to mute them when they’re at their worst
• Headaches, back aches, leg aches during menstruation: check, check, and check
• Ovulation pain: borders on menstrual cramps at times, though it’s focused “lower” and towards my back, and makes sitting down rather painful

Unfortunately, aside from dealing with all of this as I shed these last eleven pounds (or twenty-one pounds, if I change my eventual goal from 160 lbs. to 150 lbs.), and relying on copious amounts of Midol and as-needed muscle relaxants and stronger-than-Tylenol-goodness, along with heat packs and hot showers, there’s not much I can really do about the various symptoms. For a variety of reasons, most importantly the risk of blood clots (family history of them) and weight gain (hello? I did not go through digestive-system and life-altering surgery to lose over 150 lbs. only to deal with very-likely weight gain from pills!), I won’t take birth control pills, not even low-dose ones.

I just hope that my revved-up hormones settle down and stabilize, because these symptoms are a pain (literally and figuratively) to deal with.

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Excuse me? Who do you think you are and who are you, of all people, to criticize my choices and make the declaration that my intentions/plans “always” fizzle out and things never come to fruition? Since when? When I want something, I work for it, and I get it. Whether it be a house (that we’ve now owned for four years), a second car (that we’ve now owned for five and a half years), the right autism services for Ryan (year-round baby), a freakin’ Macbook (which I’m currently typing this blog entry on), central air (which I’m really enjoying on these 90° days!), or a healthier body (thanks to my commitment and follow-through with gastric bypass (getting the approval from a dude in a doctor’s coat was the easy part!) and the right type of pre-op and post-op food choices), or something else altogether, if I want it, I get it, and I do whatever it takes to get it. Hell, when I first met Dan, back in mid-July of 2000 at Burger King, I knew from after a few brief interactions with him that he was an awesome, nice, DECENT guy, and I wanted him. I kept myself in check and waited to see how things would progress between us, and when they didn’t (Dan was shy and didn’t want to scare me off, so he held off on telling me he liked me/asking me out, but the signs were SO THERE and SO OBVIOUS), I went after him. I wanted him, and I got him. *flashes left ring finger*

But that’s how my mom is. Very quick to bring on the parade-raining and criticism. She is right about one thing: back in 2005 I purchased an exercise bike, and though I stuck with it several times a week for several months, I then began to neglect it, especially after getting pregnant with Ryan right around Alyssa’s first birthday, and being busy working and pregnant and then moving and then raising a newborn and a two and a half year old. I jumped back on it — literally — when Ryan was about four months old, but at that point I was pushing 315 lbs, and I’ll be honest: I was TOO FAT for the damn bike. The seat was too small, and working out was more than uncomfortable — it was painful. So I neglected it again, and after we moved here I wound up giving it to our neighbor.

Yet other times my mom is all yay-yay cheerleader. But more often than not she’s a downer. I don’t get it. Actually, I do… her unhappiness and disappointment with her own life and choices leads her to be more than a little cynical when others around here are happy. Well, what-the-fuck ever. While her comments and such annoy me, they don’t get me. They don’t hurt me. They don’t bring me down. And they certainly don’t stop me.

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My dirty “little” secret is the one people who encounter me in public — the flirtatious guys in a parking lot, the employee who wanted my number at Target, the girls who eye me up as potential “competition” at the mall, etc. — don’t know. They see me and assume I’m just another “curvy” or “stacked” chick. What they don’t know is that I used to be almost twice my size. But now that it’s warm weather, there’s no hiding it. I feel that my upper arms give me away. I just didn’t realize until this evening, while processing photos from today, that not only do my upper arms from below (when I have my arms extended) give me away, but they also give me away from the back. Meh.

My upper arms are so ridiculously out of proportion with my body, it isn’t even funny. It’s so bad that if given the choice between abdominal surgery (tummy tuck) or arm lift (bingo flap removal), I’d go for the latter in a heartbeat.

P.S. The kitten’s name is officially Minerva. I liked Athena, I suggested Luna for Alyssa’s sake (something “easy”), but Dan really liked the name Minerva, and since he’s totally smitten with the kitten, his choice won.

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But Sephora was the worst. At 290 lbs, when I first “treated” myself to Sephora because I had finally gotten under three hundred pounds for the first time in nearly four years, I dropped $260 on my very first visit. But I didn’t have any help or suggestions from the 5+ employees that patrolled the mostly empty store at 10:15am on a Tuesday morning. Rather, I was briefly greeted and then dismissed. Meanwhile, they pounced right on the few slimmer co-shoppers that joined me in the store.

Now? I am greeted, repeatedly in fact. I’m offered baskets. I’m asked if I’m looking for anything in particular, or if I’d like any samples. When I give a list of my exact needs (such as a volumizing mascara) or problems (such as hair that needs some conditioner but not too much), the girls immediately jump to my aid, leading me to products, giving me their personal recommendations, showing me several options, reminding me of the great return policy, etc.

While I appreciate the attention, I’m also overwhelmed by it, because I’m so used to being a solo shopper without much guidance if it’s needed. Also, I’m resentful. I’m the same person with the same needs and same spending abilities, the only difference is that there’s exactly 150 lbs less of me standing in front of them.

The same goes for male attention. Before, at 331 lbs, at 300 lbs, and even at 250 lbs, the majority of positive male attention, what little of it came my way, came from black and Hispanic men. Now? Male appreciation comes much more frequently, and for the past several months it’s been a hard adjustment, to be honest, as I’m not used to so much of it (please don’t picture me saying that in a conceited look-how-hot-I-am way, because I’m not!) happening so often, and it comes from white men as well as black and Hispanic men. White men are the pickiest, so it seems, when it comes to women and body size. Dan is one of the few blessed exceptions; even my ex was picky, going so far as to tell me I was “too fat” to be on top of him. Mind you, I was 250 lbs at the time, which while not anything close to a lightweight, shouldn’t be that much of a strain for a 140 lb twenty year old man. I’ve had men who were complete strangers to me walk by me and mutter “fat bitch” under their breath, make pig noises, or worst of all, straight through me, as if I were so insignificant and undeserving of even a glance from them that they refused to acknowledge my rather obvious presence. My own brother-in-law made comments to Dan about my weight (this was years ago; also, I didn’t find this out until rather recently). He, meanwhile, continually chases after women who weigh maybe 140 lbs soaking wet, and have concerns no more important than what clothing store to shop at or what shade of fake tan to go for this week. Where’s that gotten him? Two ex-girlfriends, an ex-fiancee, and heartache and misery. Even now, after seeing how happy both his brothers are with women who break the skinny mold (both literally and figuratively), he is still making the same mistakes with the same kind of women. He refuses to look beyond the exterior.

Then there’s the women. Before I received sneers, looks of pity, or just outright dismissal. Now? I’m a force to be reckoned with, apparently, as I’ve seen other women eye me up as potential competition. That amuses me, since I’m married, and quite obviously so, since I always wear my engagement ring and wedding band. But then again, with all of the married bitches running around on their husbands in today’s day and age (and vice versa, of course, but this particular paragraph is focusing on women), I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. I’ve also had women ask where I got that shirt, those pants, that eyeshadow, that necklace, etc. – queries I never would have received before. I guess skinny women were afraid that they may have to step foot in or a near a plus size shop for a cute necklace, which might result in them catching The Fat.

Finally being accepted by society is a relief, it does make dealing with the day-to-day stuff like being treated with respect and viewed as an equal a lot easier. But it makes me resentful, and it makes me want to wring a lot of necks and make a lot of heads roll on some days.

Obesity is a disease. Whether it’s self-inflicted by poor eating habits and a lack of physical activity, brought on by genetics and/or medication, or a combination of both, the presence of it does not mean that a fat woman (or man, for that matter) deserves to be treated as a second-class citizen. And yet that is exactly what happens, in both big and small ways. And yet alcoholism, smoking-related diseases, drug-related conditions and problems¹, or even something as simple as high cholesterol are often all self-inflicted, but the people affected by them are not treated like obese people are. Why is that, exactly? Why does the 120 lb chain-smoking woman who is just a few cigarettes away from lung disease get better treatment than the 250 lb cheeseburger-eating-exercise-avoiding woman? Both are damaging their bodies by their own hand. (Edited to add: And in many cases, these non-obese people are obviously outwardly affected by their choices — the smoker with the yellowed teeth, pursed/lined lips and mouth, odor of cigarette smoke, for example) And yet… the smaller woman wins in the society food chain. Why is that?

Thank you for subscribing to Jenn.nu's RSS feed! ♥ Jenn | Flickr: kiss-my-kitty | Twitter: @kissmykitty