Before and After Stories

Peel away, set me Free! Before and After... My weight loss story!
By: Sarah Elizabeth

Facebook is an amazing way to keep up with people you love, find those that you haven’t seen in many years, and read the mundane day to day drama that most people are clueless they shouldn’t post. You can tell stories, remember funny moments and have others post pictures of times you may not really want released to the general public, let alone being TAGGED! (Ding, ding, ding!)

My mom posted a picture of me a few weeks ago from Thanksgiving of 2007. When I clicked on it, I was shocked by the size of my face. I thought, “whoa big-daddy,“ CLICK… I closed it quickly, almost out of fear someone was standing behind me and might see it, though I was sitting alone in my living room. I remember that picture very well actually. I was excited to see my parents. It had been awhile and I had already lost quite a bit of weight, but sitting here today looking back, I wasn’t anywhere near the break through that was about to finally hit me.

If I had to recall my first thoughts of “I am fat”, it was when I was seven years old. My brother Robbie had just been killed and I remember starting to feel like I wanted to hide all the time. My Aunt Charlene, in the best way she knew at the time, told me to go away, do not cry for my brother. My parents had enough on their shoulders and I needed to be strong. It would be almost five years before I cried again. I had to hold it in and be strong, grieving was for wussies. I always thought I was more like my dad anyway and since I never saw him cry, well then maybe I shouldn’t either. (No dad, I wasn’t calling you a wus! LOL) That same year I asked my mom for my eighth birthday for the “Richard Simmons Diet” (God bless his perm-gone-wrong and daisy duke tie dye workout shorts. May they RIP.) My mom had the best of intentions when she bought the plan for me, but what it taught me in that moment, would be something that would take nearly 21 years to unravel. It taught me that I wasn't good enough just as I was and that I did need to hide myself. (children tell themselves strange things...not necessarily the truth) With it brought self image, self esteem and self confidence issues. I may have wanted the diet so that I could feel accepted, but it in turn did damage I am sure my mom could have never imagined.

I wasn’t ‘fat’ in high school, but I thought I was. I probably carried an extra 15 lbs next to my peers, but I was also 5’9 and didn’t really understand that hitting puberty and all your woman glory at 10 years old makes your body do strange things, including having freakishly long finger toes! Looking back now, the only thing that was fat was my face after an allergic reaction to poison ivy. Growing boobs and hips wasn’t my issue, the hiding was in full motion and I began to build my fat-suit; the fat suit that would protect me and keep safe for many years to come. It was actually about a year ago, one of my closest friends said to me “when I am sad, I will bake a pan of cupcakes and eat them all at once.” It actually stunned me quiet (Shocking, I know). I had never done that before…eaten a whole pan of cupcakes? Really? Then I thought, “If I didn’t do that why did I get so fat?” Well, eating five cupcakes will get you the same result as 12 cupcakes, maybe just not as quickly. Don’t be delusional!

I continued to hide my feelings for years, I didn’t want people to know how I truly felt, probably for fear I’d be told to ‘go away’ or that I wasn’t worthy of being heard. Rejection is not something we are born to know how to handle on our own. When we are young we internalize all the things we did wrong to cause someone to turn us away. All the while not understanding it was something in them, an insecurity or inability to cope, that reflected their own short comings onto us. My Aunt Charlene didn’t mean to plant the ‘fat seed’, but do we ever really intentionally drive our car into a ditch?

By the time I was 20, my ever apparent weight issue was closing in on me. Size 14 then 16… “If I don’t get to an 18 I will be okay”. I knew my pants were getting tight, but hey “you have such a pretty face”! That’s all I ever heard…. WELL WHAT ABOUT THE REST OF ME, DAMMIT!!! A pretty face, even if it’s round, will only get you so far before you have to stand before yourself and face the bulging truth.

I DID THIS TO ME…??? YES, I DID THIS TO ME!

It was October 17, 2003. My size 22 behind was sifting through pictures and found a photo of a woman with my eighteen month old daughter on the beach… I said, (the edited version) “who is that fat woman with my child.” And for those of you that know Mike Kelly the next statement won’t shock you, “uh, yo dude, that’s you…scary much?” Ok fine, cottage cheese and bathing suits together should be band yes, but could you be a little gentler with a girl when she is seeing herself for the first time? LOL. Bless his big ol’head, he didn’t know any better! But despite the hurt feelings in that moment, it was my Ah-ha Moment! Looking at myself, holding that picture of a person I was embarrassed to call ‘Me’, I decided that I may not know how I was going to do it, but that was the last day. “Not one more day will I be fat or look 17 kinds of crazy and have no one tell for a half a decade.” (Yes, ladies, girlfriends and grandmas this falls under the booger rule…please do speak up!) Of course, I was fat for many more days, about 1825 actually!!! (Don’t get discouraged…it’s a process with results in between)

The hiding had to stop. The self hatred and never dealing with how I felt couldn’t go on if I wanted a different life. I created instability and drama and used those things to detract from dealing with the wounds that needed healing as a little girl. I had learned to comfort my feelings with food. It numbed the pain and got rid of my stress headaches. I didn’t know there were other outlets for coping. All I had witnessed were parents that lost a son and couldn’t give us what they didn’t have, leaving them emotionally vacant and distant for years. A girl without a strong male role model is a combination for a train wreck with boobs! I was an adult now and could no longer blame my parents or misfortune on my larger than life bootie! And yes, it’s okay you can say it, “Dang girl, your bootie was BIG.” Cause’ well, hello… IT WAS MAMMOTH!! I love my dad and mom and I know today, especially after having my own children, they did the best they could do and loved us with all they had left.

I signed up for weight watchers online that day. I was very ignorant to what nutrition was or a SALAD for that matter. Please, I do not eat peas and they were too close to the color of lettuce so sorry about your bad luck, I’d rather starve. And do not get me started on exercise. Have you ever seen a fat girl on an elliptical machine… it will make you wish you were Helen Keller! Well, that attitude had to go bye-bye. I may have not known a lick about eating right or getting fit, but that was a blessing. My slate was clean, and all I could do going forward was learn and educate myself. So, the Point counting began… and despite the unsightly jiggle from my doughy arms on a treadmill, I worked out, counted points and I lost 2 lbs my first week!

Every day was a conscious choice. What I put in my mouth today, will determine my waist line tomorrow. Fall down, get back up. Fall down, get back up. Fall down… Ok, you get the point. I may have not always been on POINT every day, but I didn’t let the horse run me over when I fell off the cart. By April of 2004 I had lost my first 50 lbs! It was so wonderful. I went from a 22 to a 16 and thought I was smokin’! That is the attitude that pressed me forward. I may not have been as hot tamale as I thought, but the idea that I may become one, kept me losing! And instead of eating, I weenie whined, snot-slobbed, cried, yelled, moaned about being HUNGRY RIGHT NOW and started to let go of each layer of pain with every foot forward on the elliptical…which I could finally do without falling off and knocking myself unconscious.

SCREeeecHing HALT!!! Wait….It’s 2006, I have lost 105 lbs… why do I feel like I did the day I started? Size 12-14, feeling good. Looking WAAYYY different for sure, but something wasn’t right. I was counting points if I felt like I was out of control, but had my eating under control and worked out 5 days a week. I still had this emptiness. I shouldn’t still be feeling like I am trapped inside myself. What hadn’t I learned yet? It had been 3 years since I started? My fat suit was being unzipped. Well, there is this funny thing about feelings, they follow you where ever you go. FL, TN, TX back to FL back to TX. What’s a little game of “ring around the state line” to make a girl wake up and see I may have lost the weight, but I hadn’t fully dealt with the reasons why I ended up in the plus size department. And trust me, all who have had a perfect life and don’t understand addictions… THEY SWITCH THEMSELVES!!! Whether your vice is food, drugs, sex, shopping or alcohol, the addictions only J-O-B is to stay alive in you! If you stop eating you could very well start drinking.

And yes, it happened to me! There may have been some drinking and some retail therapy going on for awhile. You know it’s an addiction when (1) all you do is think about it (2) you try to hide it (3) raid your child’s piggy bank to get a fix….hey, tough times call for low measures!! And even if you pay the piggy bank back…it’s still called Addiction!! I wasn’t eating…and I wasn’t completely coping, so it had to come out somewhere.

I think I thought that losing the weight would make it all better. Sure I did therapy over those first several years and certainly peeled back layers and layers of pain that had been forced dormant for so long. But 21 years of layers, well that’s a lot of FAT!

Time to get for really-real! Big choices come with big price tags. And though I did not know what lie at my next turn, I knew it would take something radical.

I walked away…. From everything…. My whole life…. My family… My home… My facade of stability. No matter what the cost I had to find out what was gripping me and keeping this strong hold on me. It took 15 months of self discovery, searching, 40 days of not eating (that’s a whole other story), letting go and being free, breaking out of the control and a whole lot of drinking in between. In doing so, and I am sure putting my kidneys and liver into near failure, I saw that though the grass may be green for awhile, if you don’t deal with what is in your face, it will follow you and eventually turn your rolling fields of green to brown! I didn’t have to run anymore, I figured out what I had been missing (and when I say missing, I don’t really mean missing.) Not to mention I came-to in a parking lot a time or three! Trust me somewhere in the mist of all that I thought I had it figured out, HA!

Addiction is powerful. Addiction is painful. Addiction can kill you. I am blessed to be able to sit here today and write about what has brought me through my addiction(s). Some don’t get this chance. For those of you that struggle with a food addiction or any kind for that matter, the food is a symptom of your pain. I don’t have a special pill or even that magic formula to make it all disappear. I didn’t do gastric bypass or have a personal trainer. What I can tell you, it’s not your daddy’s fault for not teaching you how to treat or be treated. It’s not your momma’s fault for not teaching you how to be friends with women and building a network of trust. It’s not the boy or girl that broke your heart and got away. And it’s not the friend that swore would never betray you, but did. It’s YOU. It’s YOUR choice to unzip your fat suit, show the world what we all already struggle with in one way or another, taking accountability for the choices YOU made from being hurt by others, and making the choice to LIVE. We are designed to be happy and have prosperous lives. We aren’t meant to be miserable and complacent. But, misery does love company and if you get on your blow horn, they will come!

I am not even sure what the number on the scale is today, it’s truly not important, though I am sure I am close to 160 lbs SMALLER than I was six years ago. I have lost countless inches and gone from a size 22 to a size 8. I want to witness in this life the body God intended me to have and if that means 20 more lbs or 1 more dress size then so be it. I will take what I have learned about being open and real and allow it to always remind me where I came from. Digging through these pictures to share my before and after with you was actually painful… all the while talking myself through a panic attack from fear.

Each day is a choice. A choice to CHANGE YOUR LIFE. And each day you get to choose to keep pressing through your present journey. The journey changes as we grow. We must come to accept change and allow ourselves to evolve. The choice doesn’t come with a receipt either, you don’t give yourself the option to try it on and take it back if it makes your butt look fat. We are never completely ‘OK’, how much fun would that be? I struggle sometimes daily, sometimes only every third day. My fears are never too far away to keep me from succeeding. I almost didn’t write because of those very fears. My mom and a few of my closest girlfriends encouraged me to share my weight loss story and it FREAKED ME OUT!! UMMM NO!! If people see how I used to be, they won’t like me. Can you say pride? Yeah, P-R-I-D-E. The one thing we should never let stand between ourselves and possibly helping another.

And guess what…. (I know you aren’t suppose to start a sentence with “and”, get over it) it’s okay for you not to like me, because… I love me! I couldn’t have said that to myself let alone a ginormous network of crazy folk about 6 years ago. I stand strong in knowing that every story has its journey, whether it’s my hiccup or your throw up, we all bleed red and through sharing, love, growth, self-forgiveness, becoming real and allowing others to catch us when we fall, we can create a life we are happy to Write on our Wall……

A few of my Tips/Tricks:

• Pick a meal plan that works for you. I needed Weight Watchers because it gave me freedom to choose. I am fiercely rebellious and needed to eat chocolate everyday to prove to a system that has worked for millions they were loco in the cabasa for thinking chocolate, in moderation, would let me lose weight! (I was WRONG, but got skinny trying!)

• Drink water generously. It helped my skin and cleaned out the toxins. Diet soda makes a great quick fix when you need something sweet, but try and stick with H20. It will fill your belly faster!

• MOVE YOUR BODY. Don’t care how…just get off your bum! You CAN lose weight on WW without exercise, but it will melt away faster if you shake-shake-shake!! Vacuum, fold laundry, mop…anything to keep you moving. The more you move the more you can refuel.

• Speaking of refueling…look at your body like you would a car. Your stomach is your gas tank. If you have a 17 gallon tank, why would you put 25 gallons of gas in it? Waste of money and it will spill over, right? Well, same for food, it’s fuel for your body. Too much in, Kaapow! Muffin-Top!

• Make this a Life style change, not a Monday- Friday thing. You will eventually be able to eat what you want, in moderation of course, but stick to your plan until you know you can trust YOU!

• I no longer count points. I eat when I am hungry, stop when I am near full. If that is a bowl of ice cream or a heaping salad, so be it. But don’t over fuel your gas tank, remember…spillage!

• If it’s going to go in the garbage can anyway, don’t be the disposal before it gets there!

• Get the phrase “clean your plate” out of your vocabulary. Stop when you’re nearly full! Mom's and Dad's, I know there are starving kids in Africa, but making our children fat by forcing them to finish their super sized meal deal isn't going to solve world hunger. Let's start with America's obesity epidemic!

• Journal it, talk, cry, scream, pray, knit your feelings into a throw rug for all I care, but do not use food as your pacifier one more day. Keep an accountability friend on speed dial and when you want to stuff your feelings down your gullet, PICK UP THE HONKIN’ PHONE!! Find someone you TRUST. If it’s a hole in the ground to start with, good! Don’t medicate in the bakery department!

• Strength training is VERY important. Tone up that loose skin from the beginning. You want to look like a hot tamale, not a soggy tamale.

• Have fun, switch it up and abuse Google like no one’s business. There is so much information out there and it’s FREE. Recipes, work-out tips, meal plans! Utilize support groups and networks too! It helps to know others understand. Not sure why it’s easier to tell someone you weigh 280 lbs than someone you’ve known for 20 years! Saying it out loud gives your secret wings!!

• DO NOT GIVE UP! REWARD YOUR MINI GOALS, oh yeah, SET MINI GOALS!! LOL. Put them in your reach. Saying you want to lose 160 lbs by next Wednesday is failure at its finest.

• Make a “new wardrobe” jar! Throw that change in there! You will need it sooner than you think!

• Shop consignments on your in between sizes. Losing a whole person off your backside can be expensive!

• Trust that God has a body he intended you to have and that he will grant you a reprieve and gift it back to you!! He’s cool like that!

• 1 brownie, not the entire pan! 2 pieces of pizza, not the entire extra large pie! 3 bite rule! After the third bite, the taste changes and you really don’t want it anymore anyway!

• Brag about your success. You need encouragement.

• When people say “YOU LOOK AMAZING” just shut up and say “THANK YOU”. No one likes a martyr.

• Fall in love with the new you! Reinvent. As you can see, I NEEDED IT BAD! Cut your hair, color it, change your make-up color scheme and think outside your skinny buns! Brown /teal and Pink/Black look great together!

• Tell yourself you can, even when you think you can’t! Fake it till you make it and eventually you’ll be saying “I am not just doing it, I did it!”

• Surround yourself with people who want this for you! You WILL lose friendships. People get jealous and can’t handle it when others make huge accomplishments. What’s the saying “everyone has a fat friend to make them feel better about themselves” If you get smokin’, they have no need for you anymore! Be okay with the ones that slip away, you didn’t need them in the first place.

• Start right now. Do not wait one more day. Even if it’s 10 pm, you can put the gallon of ice cream down and choose to not take that 87th bite! You can do this!!!

• Last, How will we remember you? Leave your LEGACY! The kind that leaves a mark…. here's mine:
http://www.still-moments.com

 

 

 

 

 

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