For the last ten years my weight has gone up and down. After having my second child, I struggled with post postpartum depression and, likely, post traumatic stress disorder, from two severely life threatening health complications after both my pregnancies, which included weeks in intensive care while others cared for my babies.
When I was finally at home with a 17 month old and a newborn and family and friends wandered back to their own lives; I was an emotional wreck. I didn't recognize this woman who was home alone, with no job and two small children. I resented the illness that struck me after each birth and people's assumption that since I was home from hospital, I was well. Far from it.
I survived day-to-day. I loved the children but felt distant from them and I couldn't manage the exhaustion, loneliness and sense of abandonment that I felt. Family and friends had made herculean efforts to support me and the babies while I was in hospital, but it was the aftermath that was the hardest and for that I was often alone and feeling guilty because I was supposed to be grateful to be alive, for the support that I had had.
After a year, my physician realized that I wasn't whole and put me on antidepressants. I wasn't desperately sad any more, I was...nothing. I felt nothing. Not happy, not sad. I slowed down my frantic parenting pace because I wasn't desperate to prove anything - I didn't care. And I ate. A lot.
I gained 50 pounds in 18 months.
In the back of my mind, I began to have nagging thoughts. The Prozac had taken away my despair, but it had also taken away my life. I still didn't like who I was. So, slowly I went off the medication; I began moving more. I walked every day with a child on my backpack and one in the stroller and I moved. I ate less and managed my portions. I cut out the crappy food and I lost ten pounds, easy.
My career and marriage had begun to fracture. Step One - Counselling (personal and marriage). I had to try to understand where and when I got so lost. I tried to figure out how I could save my unraveling marriage to a distant husband who preferred being at work to being home and once home, preferred being at Home Depot to being with me.
Step Two: Work. I started a home daycare; that didn't work well for me. I began freelance communication work and that did wonders. I could choose my workload, I could (on occasion) leave the house and visit clients and wear slacks and a blouse. I made some money and contributed to the household and I lost another ten pounds.
Over the next couple of years, I yo-yo ed up and down with those twenty pounds until one of my clients, the YMCA, offered me a full time job. I went back to work and lost thirty pounds in a year. I had gone from 125 to 175 and down to 145.
Step 3: My marriage. It was in pieces and counselling wasn't working (in the sense that my marriage wasn't being saved). My weight was an issue and I felt unattractive and unlovable. My wardrobe was full of figure suppressing, blousy sacks that were designed to minimize my profile and undermine my self worth. I actually tried to be unnoticeable. So, I fought those feelings and thought about my work, where I felt respected and valued - I managed my portions, I walked, and I kept cleaning up my life.
Step 4: Divorce. The marriage counselling worked. It took a long time for me to realize the marriage couldn't be saved and that the children weren't going to be happy until their parents were happy. I got separated and I moved out on my own with my girls. I lost ten more pounds renovating my new home.
Step 5: Re-birth. I renovated my wardrobe. I mean, I really renovated it. I spent money buying clothes that fit. I looked for my physical attributes and I celebrated them and that was hard because for a long time, I believed celebrating my body was somehow inappropriate. I wanted sexy back not for anyone else, but me. And sexy exists at any weight. So, I shopped for the body I had instead of waiting for the one I wanted and lost ten more pounds without even trying. 125, at last.
It's 2012 and I am 125 pounds. I have a fabulous new husband, wonderful girls whom I love to spend time with, and a great job with peers I respect and from whom I receive respect. My life is not without its dramas and tough spots - my father died this year and it broke my heart - but I managed my feelings without gaining any weight.
Here's the thing. My weight gain was surely a result of eating too much of the wrong foods and a slowed metabolism from the medication. However, the real cause of my weight gain was unhappiness. Emotional eating is one term I've heard applied to this. But I don't even think it was that for me. I just ate because I had to fill the time, I had to fill the space; I had no identity.
The real weight loss plan consisted of looking deeply at myself and realizing I was lost. These traumatic life events merely brought my self-loathing to the surface where it couldn't be ignored and it was ugly so I covered it with food.
A wise man once said to me, "You're suffering from ambivalence. When your desire to lose weight outweighs (pardon the pun) your willingness to remain as you are, it will change." And then another wise friend said, "It's as far away as a decision."
I made a decision to live my life instead of have life be something that just happened to me. I ate less, ate better and moved more - no magic bullet there. The desire to change, the commitment to loving myself as selfishly as possible, to be the change I wanted to see...that's how it was done.
The truth is, many of us who are overweight are unhappy. We're not unhappy because we're fat - we're fat because we're unhappy. And the moment that I decided to change, my ambivalence was gone and the new me emerged and I've learned to respect her.
