Just a Number

I love Brittany at Barefoot Foodie. She cracks me up. I also love how open she is with whatever is happening in her life. In her latest post, she is sharing some pics that reminded her that she is a beautiful, sexy woman. I left this comment:

It doesn’t matter what we weigh, what size we wear or how tight the movie theater seats are getting… we are never beautiful until we accept ourselves for who we are. Once that happens, the size is just a number.

I have no idea where that came from, but I need to remember it. :-)

Giveaway at This Little Family

Cheri at This Little Family is hosting an alight.com giveaway. I'd never heard of alight.com before this, but it's awesome. It's a trendy, reasonably prices plus sized clothing shop. They have a lot of dresses, and while I'm not really into dresses, they are cute enough that I can picture them over my fav jeans. I'm such a fashion statement. I'm excited to spend more time checking out this site. What are you waiting for? Check out the giveaway!

Popsicles and Potato Chips

I went to the Weight Watchers website. Something about Jennifer Hudson being the spokeswomen really inspired me. I don't even listen to her music. I think it's the line in the commercial where she says "I've never been this size in my entire adult life." When I turned 18, I wore an 18. I weighed 180 pounds. By 22, I was into a 22 and by 24, I was wearing a 24. Now I'm 26 and I've kept up the trend... I can't fathom being smaller than an 18. Heck, I can't fathom being a 22 again. My biggest fear with going to Weight Watchers is the stress of trying to plan menus, especially since I've taken to living off banana popsicles and the occasional potato chips this summer. Cooking feels so overwhelming. I don't know how to put meals together. Usually, the Husband won't eat whatever I make ("I don't like it," "I'm not hungry," "That gives me an upset stomach.") so I end up cooking for myself and things aren't designed for just one person. How have people learned how to make "dinners?" My idea of dinner is making a box of mac and cheese and eating that. That's probably 65 points right there.

Then the worst thing happened...

I realized that I picked up fat free cream cheese instead of the good shit. *gag* I think it would have had a similar flavor if I would have just melted the wal-mart bags down and made them into a creamy paste with a shot of Elmer's Glue. I mean, honestly, was that one of the "punishments" that God dealt out to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Good and Evil? "You ate from my Tree, so you're going to have to work hard, experience pain during childbirth and oh, yeah, the food that tastes the best, it's going to be bad for you." "No, God! Anything but that!!"

I did, however, manage to remedy the situation by adding pizza sauce and cheese to the top of the cream cheese, which ALMOST covered the taste.

Amusement Parks

I used to love amusement parks. The thrill of the roller coaster, the rides that turn you over, the merry-go-round.... well, maybe not so much the merry-go-round. My problem is now that it's getting harder and harder to get into the rides. I hate going. I hate knowing that people are watching me as I S-Q-U-E-E-Z-E into a seat or, humiliatingly get back off, because a harness won't latch. I just wish I could go and have fun.

Tie and extra person to your back

I have enough extra weight to equal another person. Another ADULT person. I'm exhausted all the time. No wonder, because I'm dragging around another person! I don't think I'll ever shake the weight. It scares me and I want to give up, lock myself in my room and overdose on ice cream.

South Beach Diet

One of my co-workers is doing the South Beach Diet. If you're unfamiliar, during the first 2 weeks of the SBD, you fore go without anything to eat but fish, chicken, veggies and fat-free cheese. No bread, no pasta, no sugars. Impossible. We had a picnic at work- hot dogs, bakes beans, macaroni salad, brownies... so delicious. Do you know what my co-worker ate? Spinach and lettuce with oil and vinegar and celery stalks with low fat string cheese. My problem comes in that 1: I love hot dogs 2: I believe that ranch dressing is a cure-all and you can't eat it on the SBD 3: She looked miserable, sitting there, munching on her celery and I just can't do that. I have a relationship with food. A good one and I'm not willing to lose that. I'm afraid I'll be fat forever.

"She has such a pretty face..."

"It's a shame she can't lose some weight." If I had a dollar for every time someone said that to me, I could afford a personal trainer. I rarely talk about my weight issues. For a long time, I didn't think I had any weight issues. My weight was never a big deal. Then my dad died at 57. He'd had a lot of weight related complications: diabetes, strokes, heart attacks, sleep apnea... I was terrified that I would miss pivotal events in my children's lives.

I don't really know when my weight got "out of control." I remember when I started to notice I was too heavy. I was in 4th grade. I weighed 120lbs. One of my classmates, who was pretty and popular, told everyone that she weighed 100lbs. For year, my ideal weight was 100lbs. That was probably the time that puberty was starting, because that was the year my mom bought me my Garfield underwire bra and undies set. The bra was a B cup. I know a lot of adults who don't wear a B and that's where I started out.

I figured I ate because I was lonely. We had moved when I was in 2nd grade to take care of my great aunt and great grandfather. Granted, we still lived on the same street. It was so lonely. My mom was so busy taking care of them that she stopped taking care of me. She was so tired, so I can't really blame. She was still working full-time in her own business and coming home at night to change diapers. I just retreated to the upstairs, away from my aunt who passed the time by sitting in her chair, moaning.

I had a friend who lived next door to our old house, so she would walk down the road and we'd play, but we fought a lot, too. Potato Chips never fought with me.

I'm sure my mom didn't know what to do about my growning weight problem. She tried to help, but it pretty much made me feel worse. She was great for saying, "You have such a pretty face, if you'd only lose some weight." I remember another time, she told me to go stand naked in front of the floor length mirror in her bathroom, because then I'd see "how bad" it really was.

Most of my mom's tactics were to try and motivate me by feeling badly about myself. That never worked, it just made me turn to my good friends Chocolate and Ice Cream for some emotional support.

At the beginning of the month, I bought a Wii Fit and I was doing really well. But, now I've kinda fizzled out. I'm tired and it's frustrating when I work so hard and only burn 190 calories. I'm hoping that by writing this blog, I will find other people in the "Pretty Faces" Society, who are at their wits-end like me. Hopefully, I will be able to do what I haven't been able to do in the last 16 years.