You know, I don't think I realized how many emotions came with losing weight. Gaining weight was easy. I just ate. Which is probably why I do not really remember the emotions - I am an emotional eater - happy, sad, whatever, I like to eat!
However, now that I am losing weight and eating whatever, wherever, and whenever I want is not an option, I have to do something with said emotions in other ways. I am having to learn how to do that. Just because you don't use food to cope with emotions does not mean that you just magically know how to have a different outlet for said emotions. It's kind of weird and bizarre to me. I have yet to figure out what exactly it looks like to have different outlets for emotions or even if that is what it should be called. I am still trying to figure all this emotion stuff out, but I know that I can no longer use/view food in the same way as I did before. And I don't. I definitely feel like there has been a change...well I know there has been a change for the better. At the same time, I don't feel like my thoughts/feelings/views on food are done changing yet and they may not be for awhile. I am okay with that for right now because I didn't put all my weight on overnight and I will not be taking it off overnight so I am not going to rush to change my emotions and views on food overnight. This weight-loss journey is just that - a journey and not just a final-number-on-the-scale-at-the-end result. I have to learn in this period or before you know it, as soon as I get the weight off, I could more easily put it right back on. And that is not healthy physically, emotionally, mentally, or spiritually. What I do know is this journey has been hard on all four of those levels, but as it talks about in James 1:2-4 that we know the testing of our faith develops perseverance and we must develop perseverance so that we may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.
It is weird, though, I'll tell you. I never felt like I was fat or overweight. Don't get me wrong, I knew I was and still am. But I didn't feel like it. My 91-year-old Grandma moved into an assisted living facility a few weeks ago. She often says two things: 1. That she thinks everyone else in the place is older than she is (although the reality is she is one of the older people there, she is very young spirited and lively for her age - in the best way possible) 2. She doesn't feel like she's 91, but much younger. It's like every time someone has a birthday, people ask them if they feel a year older, the answer is always no. Because you don't age a year overnight, you don't feel a year older overnight. Because I didn't put 90 pounds on overnight, I didn't feel 90 pounds overweight. And, oddly, for the most part, I was fairly healthy for being 90 pounds overweight. I did not have diabetes or other health problems that would be attributed to being that overweight. I could run up the stairs in my house without being winded. Mind you, I couldn't go out for a jog in the neighborhood without getting winded, but I could do the basic life functions without feeling like I was going to die. So in someways it was hard to feel like I NEEDED to lose weight when I didn't feel like death or really that bad about things. The images in the mirror weren't ideal, but they could haven been worse.
When I started this process and I really began to think about things and the longer I have been on this weight-loss journey, the more I see the need for change. When I first started this program, I was wearing a size 14 jeans at Old Navy. Their plus size section starts at 16. Let's be embarrassingly honest here, I probably should have been in a 16. If you have a BMI 30 or greater, you are considered obese. A BMI of 40 or greater is considered morbidly obese. When I first started this program, five pounds down from my heaviest, I had a BMI of 39. As of about a month ago, I was down to a BMI of 32 and a pants size of a 10. Definitely a great improvement, but a huge eye opener too! To think that I am down 41 from my heaviest (36 on this program) with 49 more to go. What will my pants size or my BMI look like in 49 pounds? It is really nice that the amount I have already lost and the amount that I still have left to lose start with the same number, even though there is an eight pound difference, mentally it is nice.
I went to Starbucks this afternoon for a cup of Pike Place (black, of course) to read and just to get out of the house on this rainy, dreary day. I saw a number of women who had the same body type that I did before I started losing weight (and really that I still kinda have, just not as noticeable) and honestly it made me kinda sad. I think I was finally noticing what others have noticed about me physically. I made 2013 calendars for my family for Christmas - one for my real family and a different one for my Oregon family. I ordered an extra one that I made for my Oregon family for myself and I pulled it out after I got home from Starbucks to hang it up and I saw this one picture of my brother, Kory, and me doing lunges as a joke and I kinda felt sick at how I looked. Again, I do not consider myself thin now, but there is enough of a change that it is noticeable and I do not consider my old self attractive. That picture of Kory and me was taken at the end of May - rather recently in the grand scheme of things. It is just crazy to see some of these changes. This is where I have a hard time defining and expressing such emotions. A big part of me looks at that picture and smiles because it was a fun picture with fun memories and I love my brother, but the other part of me wants to cry because I feel like I look so gross in that picture and I can't believe I let myself get to that place - even though, at the time, I didn't feel like anything was wrong. I knew it, but I didn't feel it and I didn't feel the need to change.
With all that said, I don't know how to tie that all together other than this is where I'm at, I do not have all the answers yet, it is a process, it is hard, and the Lord is good. All the time. Sorry this post is kinda long. Actually I'm not. It feels good to get this out. But for now...
All in.
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