the Path

I’ve been overweight most of my life. The journey that has led me to “Be a Loser” is one that started when I was very young. I come from a very competitive family. My sister and I were always expected to excel in every endeavor we began whether it was school, sports, or extracurricular activities. We were taught from a young age to not accept second best, and even at 31 years old the only thing my father has to say to me to break my heart into a million pieces is that he is disappointed in me. So competition and expectation of excellence began early.

With pressure comes the search for outlets. Some people choose severe vices such as drugs or alcohol others chose things that can be considered “healthy,” such as exercise. My choice unfortunately was food. I remember when I got my license finally that I was so excited that I would be able to go out and get my own food when I was upset or needed comfort. Food has, until recently, been a source of every emotion possible. Anger, rage, love, comfort, satisfaction, encouragement, defeat, anything and everything you can imagine, I associated food with it all. I’ve known for years that it isn’t healthy behavior, but like any vice or addiction, I made every excuse in the book to keep using it in the way in which I had learned to use it for as long as possible.

So what sparked the change? Well as most know I’ve been through a rough patch in life over the past couple of years. I got away from a mentally, emotionally, and at times physically abusive relationship and marriage. I went through the emotional ups and downs associated with escaping that controlled environment and going through a divorce. I then had to figure out who I was. I had for so long associated and defined myself through that relationship that I had no idea.

I once again found myself competing. Not with any tangible thing but with the expectations of my family and friends and the accomplishments that my sibling and cousins had achieved that increased my self-pressure to do something, anything to be on top again. I also found that I was competing within myself. I had to compete with my emotions to get away from a bad situation, I then had to allow competing hopes for the future to war themselves out within me. This is all part of discovering yourself and it is something I have endured for the last two years. As ridiculous as all this sounds, something happened that truly changed everything and put many things into perspective for me.

My niece Mia was born. She is the absolute light of my life, and watching her grow over the past year has made me realize that my behavior, vices, and attitudes will get me nowhere but to an early grave. The joy that I have gotten from being around Mia over the past year isn’t worth giving up early. It’s strange but that little girl reminds me of myself. She’s independent, loves her dogs, intelligent as can be, and stubborn to an extent. Her personality comes out more and more every day, and it struck me that I don’t have to fit into some mold of what people expect from me. I need to make my own decisions and be happy, instead of trying to make everyone else happy. Mia is so much her own person, and it seems she takes after her mother in being a free spirit. I always envied that of my sister Carrie. She was always her own person first and foremost. She stuck up for me when I couldn’t stick up for myself. She has made decisions in her life and allowed herself to make them regardless of what others may think. She may be my younger sister but she is so much more mature and older than me in some ways. The envy over the past ten years or so turned to admiration, and I’ve been searching for the way in which to make those types of decisions myself. The first one I made was leaving the farce that was my marriage. Now I am ready to make another big one.

Knowing now what the main catalyst for change in my life has become, it is equally important to look at the path to this destination and decision. About four years ago now, when I was living in Colorado, my parents came out to visit. I remember my mother taking me aside and telling me how worried she was about my physical condition, my weight. Granted she had no idea the other things going on at that point which had contributed to my reaching that weight, but she was worried. No child likes to worry their parents. So to stop worrying my mom, and to be around for Mia, I absolutely have to get healthy. The first thing I need to do to get healthy is lose this weight.

This past summer I was forced to finally have the major knee surgery that I’ve been dreading for years. Having that surgery has taken some options that I had recently considered out of the equation. However it was a decision that I made for myself, despite the wishes of others for me not to have the surgery. I’m glad I did it. My leg is straight for the first time in my life, and I can feel myself getting stronger every day. My orthopedic surgeon, like all of the others before him, said that the one way to guarantee that I won’t have to have another surgery for many, many years is to get active, get healthy and lose weight.

I’ve always been physically strong. My sorority sisters used to joke that I was the security for the girls when we went out. As much of a joke as it was, it was partially true. There were many times that a sister of mine found herself in a precarious situation with a member of the opposite sex, and all I had to do was to look at him with warning. There were times we would all go downtown and the boys would get into altercations and I was the one ushering the girls out the back door, or getting them into corners so they wouldn’t get hurt. There’s the time I took a beer bottle upside the head at Glory Days because some random girl was upset with my sisters and I, and I didn’t even flinch. I have hundreds of stories that could probably fill a book and make a pile of money, but it was just part of my persona when I was in college, and it was a front I put up during high school to deal with the cruelty of that place.

I hated high school. HATED it. I wouldn’t go back and repeat those four years if someone paid me millions of dollars. I was never popular in high school. I was a bit of a nerd I was focused on my grades and on the debate team. Yes, I said the debate team. That was the only place I found comfort in high school other than food. I was made fun of on a daily basis. I was tall, overweight, pale skinned, red-headed, freckled, etc. So instead of letting the name calling crush me into oblivion I did two things. First, I put up a front that I was tough and that you shouldn’t mess with me. I never, ever got into an actual physical fight at school, but somehow I built up my reputation that I was a tough girl. I wore jeans, flannels, old army jackets, etc. I never dressed girly, barely wore make-up, I wore combat boots, all of which will probably shock my sorority sisters. Second, I ate. I ate a lot. If I had a tough day at school, I’d stop on the way home at one of the many fast food places along 360 and I’d eat. I would eat in my car, I never went inside. I would eat alone. I’d hide the wrappers, or stop somewhere else to throw them away before I got home. My mother and I discussed this recently and she said that she and my father knew what I was doing but they knew if they said anything it would have made it worse. She’s right. I would have done nothing but rebelled. So that was high school. I was made fun of for being fat, so instead of confronting the issue, I comforted it with what I knew…food.

Then I went off to college. Well my first year of college at American University in D.C. was a big eye-opener for me. All of a sudden I wasn’t the fattest girl around and I had friends. Actual friends that were part of the “in” crowd and who I thought cared about me. I ended up on a co-ed floor which happened to be the “Greek” floor so I was with a bunch of Alpha Tau Omega brothers. They became my friends. I went to all of their parties, got to be very good friends with a few of them, and somehow ended up bartending at a club on Connecticut Avenue at 18 years old. The owner of the bar seemed to like me and let me work the door for a few nights before asking me to tend bar. He never checked my ID, didn’t seem to care how old I was, and was nothing but good to me. So here I was, away from home, missing home, but bartending, being the popular one in my group of friends, and finding out what it was like to party and hang out with friends at all hours of the night. The bar was in a basement, and there were a few nights that we didn’t come out until 7 AM or later. Sun hurts when you haven’t seen it in a while. It was a fun time in my life, and because I was having fun, I didn’t think about food. Because I didn’t think about it, I got thinner.

Of course partying all the time while at a school like American is not conducive to good grades and mine suffered, ridiculously. So I came home. In the meantime I had dislocated my knee again and I had to come back and consult with a surgeon to fix both knees. So I had my second knee surgery on my left knee and my first on my right knee in 1998. I came back to Richmond and ended up at VCU. I didn’t really have a choice in the matter since my grades were so bad at AU, but it ended up being a very good thing.

Once I was recovered from the surgeries, I started hanging out at VCU much more and I fell into hanging out with some Greeks. Having had my experience and fun at AU, I knew I wanted to rush. So I went through formal recruitment at VCU in the fall of 1999. I found my home with Alpha Gamma Delta that semester and I became part of something that changed my life forever. Not only was I now a part of the “in” group socially, but I was a part of the larger Greek organization at VCU which, at the time, was a very, very close knit group of people who knew how to have fun and take care of each other. I would have been lost at VCU without them.

During all of this time, I went to school, worked, and eventually ended up down at Glory Days…ah good old Glory Days, with many other Greeks who worked there. I was having fun, I was popular, well known, respected, and I was the happiest I’ve ever been. Consequently, I was also the thinnest I’ve ever been. I remember coming home Christmas of 2000 and going down to North Carolina to see my family and all of them commenting on how good I looked. Thing was, regardless of the fact that I was thin, I wasn’t healthy. I wasn’t going about it in the right way. Partying, drinking, not eating, none of that leads to healthy weight loss. Basking in the glow of popularity and recognition kept me from seeing that, which eventually led to me putting the weight back on and then some.

Glory Days eventually shut down, and I became more focused on my school work. Right after the bar closed, and about a month and a half after 9-11, I met my now ex-husband at a fraternity party. He and I dated for quite a while and things were really very good in the beginning. Then the second war started. I remember sitting in my bedroom watching the first wave of “shock and awe” with him. He was excited. He couldn’t wait to go. I was scared. I remember the first time he left. I remember how badly my father wanted to go with him. I remember how terrified I was. He came back about four months later. He seemed not too much worse for the wear and we continued our relationship. About four months after that he found out he had to go back again. We decided to get married. We did. No wedding, no party, no reception. It was just he and I and a judge. He left for the second time. That time was harder. He came back six months later. He didn’t talk about it much and I chalked that up to him dealing with things in his own way because that was the way it had always been in my family. Then he got orders to move to Colorado. I was somewhat hesitant but I was always the one that said I wanted to get out of Virginia. So we left. We got there thinking he wouldn’t have to deploy. We were wrong. Two months after we arrived he got orders to go back to Iraq. We moved there in April, he left for the third time in July. He didn’t come back until the following February. When he came home that last time, something had changed. Something had happened in the desert that I still don’t know. He was shut off, closed down mentally. I couldn’t reach him. I tried. He shook at night. He spoke in Arabic when he was sleeping sometimes. Things got bad. I tried harder. That made him shut down even more. It just didn’t work. It’s sad the things that this war have done to our generation. That’s all I have to say about that.

During all of this time, food was my solace. When he left and I was scared I ate. When I didn’t hear from him during a black-out and I was worried, I ate. When I was alone in Colorado with no family or friends, I ate. When he came home and we were happy for a short time, we ate. I was at my thinnest when I met my ex-husband. By the time I left him I had probably put on over 100 pounds. In five years. Scary.

So I came home. For a short time I actually lost weight. Again I didn’t do it healthily. I didn’t eat. I partied, but I didn’t eat. Not the way to lose it. So when I got over the initial shock of being a divorcee at 29, I settled into the familiar feelings of worry, fear, sadness, anxiety and what did I do? You guessed it, I ate. I put the small amount of weight that I’d lost back on, and quickly.

Then I woke up one morning, weighed myself, and realized I was at my heaviest. I weighed 289 pounds to be exact. Yes. I weighed that much. No, I am not lying, and yes I know I “carry it well.” I went through some phases of trying to “do” something about it. I had a trainer for a while at the gym. I got stronger, but I still ate. I did the whole bodybugg thing about a year ago. I used it, but I still ate. Then I had to have knee surgery again. That gave me a lot of time to think, to write, and to examine my life. I realized something. I don’t want to be here. Not like this. Not in this body. Those of you that know me know this isn’t me. So it’s time to do something about it.

If you go on my facebook and look at my friends, or if you look at my pictures you’ll realize something; that I am friends with the “beautiful people.” Physically I used to compare, I used to be one of them. While I know that my friends love me for who I am, I don’t feel like I’m totally part of the group. I can’t because of where I am physically. I know this is ridiculous and that I will likely get flack from them when they read this blog, but it’s the way it is…for me. Unless you have been there, you cannot imagine what it is like to go out with a group of women who are all thin, beautiful, look amazing in any clothes they throw on, when you feel like a blimp and you spend hours trying to find some outfit that is at least somewhat figure flattering. I love my friends. I love going out with them, but what I don’t love is the way I feel. Because for all of the pseudo-confidence that I have, deep down I’m screaming at myself for being out, telling myself that I’m too fat to be out with these gorgeous women. Well, that’s over. That’s done. I will never feel that way again. Yes, Richmond is in trouble. For when this weight is gone, and I am one of the “beautiful people,” things will never be the same.

So yes, I want to be part of this program to lose weight, to be thin, to be healthy, to be beautiful, to be desirable and envied, to live a long life, to save money on clothing and medical expenses, to fit in with my friends, to make myself and my family proud, to have who I am on the inside match what I am on the outside. When I dream, I see myself as thin, I always have. In my mind’s eye I don’t see the extra weight, but I know it is there. There are just so many reasons and I could go on and on for days about them. I’m sure I have already lost some of you and blabbering on about all of this can be tiring, but it is important for me to put all of this out there so that you all understand but more importantly so that I can truly understand why I am doing this and what it means for me to finally, finally succeed.

This is life. Life isn’t easy. It takes us in the wrong direction from time to time. The direction doesn’t matter. What matters is how hard you fight until you get back on your path, and that no matter what, you get up every time you get beaten down and keep clawing back. This is a clawing upward for me. I could use a helping hand to get to the next level from time to time, so if you see me struggle, push me. Push me or pull me up. Don’t let me fall back down.