Make the Lemonade!

Last week’s post got me thinking about this one I posted in The Occasional Nomads on August 6, 2020.

My sister sent me the above photo last week. My brother has been transferring my mom’s photos to digital files and sent this one to my sister for some reason.

A little backstory on the photo: I am 14 and in my first year of high school. I am waiting for a boy named Jim to pick me up for the semi-formal Homecoming Coronation Ball, wearing an older woman’s orange wool cocktail dress that my mother made me buy because she did not want to pay for a semi-formal dress. I hated the orange dress and didn’t want to go to the dance wearing it. I actually ended up getting my wish because Jim never showed up. It hurt at the time, but looking back it was a blessing in disguise. I would have been miserable, and I didn’t like Jim all that much anyway.

The first thing I noticed about the picture though was how small I was, a mere slip of a girl really. I was almost as tall as I am now, but so slim. You couldn’t have convinced me of that back then though because I was already convinced I was fat. I was always on a diet because the message I kept getting over and over at home was that I was overweight. It started when I was in middle school, when my older brother came up with a nickname for me, “Super Oink,” to let me know he thought I looked fat. He eventually shortened it to “Super,” but the name still hurt me deeply. My parents laughed every time I brought it up and thought it was funny and told me to “get over it;” my brother was never asked nor told to let it go (my brother still calls me Super today, like it’s some endearing connection, but I refuse now to use or respond to it). The hurt was so deep at the time I moved to my grandmother’s home for a few months, walking to school every day and hitching rides with friends for choir practice and church on Sunday (my grandmother didn’t drive). My father got in on the weight shaming as well from time to time. For example, during the summer after my freshman year I practically starved myself and exercised daily to lose weight because I had been selected for the school’s drill team and thought I should be thinner for that. When I went to tell my parents one morning that I had reached my goal weight, my Dad’s only comment was, “Well, your legs still look heavy,” and there was no comment or rebuttal from my mother. I remember feeling crushed. By my junior year I was attending Weight Watchers meetings even though I had trouble convincing them I needed to lose weight.

When I look at that picture of my 14-year-old self now I feel angry, sad, and disappointed, just like that young girl in the picture felt that evening. I was not overweight, even by a little, but I had already been conditioned to think I was, already seeing the “fat girl” every time I looked at my reflection and constantly comparing myself to other girls I thought were thinner. I know now they weren’t.

Why did I think I was overweight? Why was I made to feel so ashamed of how I looked? That’s what makes me angry now, not just for myself but for so many women. Who did/does that serve? What did it/does it matter? What was/is the point? Back then I was a good student, read constantly, had nice friends, and earned my own money babysitting in the neighborhood. I was healthy and active. No one outside of my family seemed to care what my weight was or how I looked, so why did my family keep it up? Because of their judgements and remarks, and also because super-skinny models like Twiggy came to be seen as desirable and attractive at about the same time, I have spent most of my life obsessing about my weight and food, always asking myself if I “look fat” in something, always thinking things would be better if I was “thin,” and constantly following one diet or another and berating myself when my weight creeped up. For what?

That early conditioning has been more potent and ingrained than I ever imagined, and has stayed with me, impossible to get rid of. It has only been in the last two decades that I began to recognize and remember what had been going on and begin to change my attitude and how I see myself. I worked hard to raise my daughters differently so that they exercise and eat well for no other reason than it is healthy. I’m losing weight now for my health as well, so my joints and back don’t ache so much. I am no longer obsessed with food and I forget we have a scale most of the time. I know I will never be model thin, but again, so what? Sadly, I still stop at a mirror whenever I pass one and check to see whether I “look fat,” and I still see a fat girl most of the time, not what Brett, my children, or others see. I’m still healing, but I’m not there yet and sometimes wonder if I will ever get there. The scars of my past are deep.

I was genuinely pleased with myself at the end of last year because even though I didn’t lose any weight, I didn’t gain any either. Two weeks ago, after a few months away I decided to step on the scale again and see how things were going.

I weighed 15 pounds more than I did at the end of last year! Fifteen pounds! What?? How?? In spite of being incredibly shocked the first thing I had to ask myself is: where had that weight been added to my body? I haven’t changed size – all my clothes continue to fit the way they did last year. I don’t struggle to get into my clothes and nothing is too tight. I honestly had no idea what was going on. Did I really gain weight last year? Or, did I add 15 pounds in a few months this year? I just couldn’t figure out what happened, but the pounds were there.

A few days after this shock I was watching a Instagram post from @gwenacious (who is a follower and an all-around lovely person). She is halfway through her weight loss and fitness journey, and in the video she called herself a “fit bitch.” She eats and exercises, she said, like someone who is already fit, not someone who is trying to get fit and lose weight. She said this mindset has been the key to her success this time after so many failures.

Her words hit me like a ton of bricks because I have NEVER eaten or exercised like someone who considers themselves fit, but ALWAYS like someone who is trying to eventually be fit. It’s no wonder I’ve never been able to stick to a way of eating, or any exercise, because even if I did, I have never seen myself as a truly fit person. And, it’s incredibly easy to return to bad habits when you believe in your core that you’re not fit (and never going to get there either) which is what I have always done. It became perfectly clear to me that once I get the pounds off I go right back to doing all the things that put the weight on to begin with because in my mind I’ve never accepted myself as a healthy, fit person. In my mind I have always been the fat, unfit girl. (By the way, this return to old habits has been rightly called – in my opinion – the Great Forgetting, the leaving behind all the hard work and mental effort that has been previously put into the process.)

I decided then and there that going forward Brett and I were going to shop, eat, and act like we are fit people in good shape who intend to stay that way (Brett already is). I mentally changed how I approach eating and exercise and made some immediate, easy changes to the weekly menu plan, adding more protein and salads and dumping the huge amount of carbs that we had been eating. We’ve changed the amounts we eat for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I started walking again with Brett and the dogs and am getting out of my chair more (although my back is not sure it likes this part). Strength training is coming up. I’m learning more about staying fit when you’re over 70. I’m also sleeping better and giving up coffee has really made a difference in that.

I still have no idea where those 15 pounds came from or where they are in my body. My hypothesis is that I must have somehow done something wrong when I weighed myself at the end of last year because I don’t think I suddenly added 15 pounds this year. Maybe it’s just the curse of growing older, but for now it remains one of life’s little mysteries.