What Am I Really Doing This For?

Ok, so, I'm about a week into this two-week break I'm taking between fasts.

I have gained back 16 pounds in a six day period - that's almost three pounds a day back on, compared with the two-pounds a day that took it off.

How can that possibly be? I will give you I'm not just eating salads and greens, but actual meals. Are the meals that high in calories? I assure you, no.

I feel so angry about the weight just jumping back on to me. I really thought I'd have about five pounds come sneak back on. Not almost all of the twenty I'd lost.

So now it begs the question: What am I fasting for? Is it really for the purity of cleaning out my system? Or, for what seems like quick and dirty weight loss?

I guess it's time for all coy-ness to end here today: I am a female, somewhere between 5'7" and 5'6" tall. I currently weigh 227 pounds. Three months ago, I weighed 243. I have been hovering the last few months at 233 - I just could not get myself to go lower.

I have been a size 14 for as long as I can remember. As a little girl, as a teenager, as an adult. As an adult, I have lost a significant amount of weight a few different times - each time then gaining it back as a way to escape the unexpected attention that generates when men see an attractive body. What I did for my health somehow became something men wanted to make their own property. I found this very uncomfortable, and returned to the safety of the weight to make them go away.

I'm in my mid 30s, and I'm sick of hiding out from my life. There are a lot of things I put onto being thin - finding true love, finding the great career, finding happiness. I really just want to be thin for my own health. But becoming thin had other side effects. More guys became interested in me; guys who wouldn't even give me eye contact when I was heavier. How am I supposed to sort through all these guys? Everything changed. I was uncomfortable. I ran back into the safety of the higher numbers on the scale.

The trajectory has been like this: starting college, I weighed 170. I got down to 150 pounds - guys crawled out of the woodwork to date me. I got scared and gained the weight back, getting up to 180. After college I lost weight again, getting down to 155. Again, new found attention sent me running back up the scale, and then some. Now I got up to 190. I got a bug to lose that weight, got down to 155 again, and panicked again at the attention. It's like I have to gain more weight to keep the guys away. In recent years, I've been hovering around 211.

It's been over the last five years that I have gained and lost the same 30 pounds. Down to 180, back up to 211, down, up, down, up. Finally, a few months ago, I'd had enough. I couldn't bear the thought of losing the same fucking 30 pounds again. I had to do something different. But what?

If I couldn't go down, I thought, then all I can do is go up.

It all became so clear to me; I am going to gain weight. If I think that guys treat me so differently, if I think girls get so jealous of me, if I think people are only nice to thin people and mean to fat people, then why don't I get fat and test that theory? What if I get fat to prove that people aren't mean to fat people - that maybe they are mean to mean people, and bitchy to bitchy people, and like people who simply like people? Maybe it has been all in my head. Maybe my weight has nothing to do with it at all.

So, I forced myself up the scale to 243.

Why 243, you ask? Well, because to me, a fat person weighs over 200 pounds. I was already over 200 pounds, and my friends and family would always say, "Oh, you're not fat. You're just big boned. But you are not fat."

Big bones are bullshit, I think, but that is yet to be seen. However, I thought, well, if I'm not fat at 211, then how about 250? What would they think then.

I gain the weight. I start noticing looks of pity, of concern. I notice silence around me where there used to be reassurance. Aha, I thought. Finally, they can no longer blame my weight on my bones. I found it interesting to see their reactions.

I hit 243 and did not go higher. Quite honestly, I was concerned about my health - it was getting harder to walk, my knees began hurting, I was not enjoying it. I justified that my scale is 7 pounds lighter than my doctor's office. 243/250 - close enough. My health was clearly being jeopordized. It was time to take it off.

So, I start just walking and not intentionally eating so much. The first 10 pounds dropped off. But then I stayed there. I think I became frozen: am I really going to be able to do this? Am i really going to be able to take this weight off? Do I really even want to be thin?

All of these questions are part of this experience. What is being thin to me? What will that look like, aside from the obvious? What type of person will I be? Will I change into a self-righteous, skinny bitch? Or just ease into another version of myself?

It remains to be seen. My goal is health, but interactions among other people affect me. I am learning to be true to myself. That's as much a part of this weight experiment as anything.

Overall, I want health. I will have to learn to naviagate the rest.

Back to the fasting concept. I did like it; if for no other reason than I didn't worry about food or eating. After just a few days of eating foods with carbs in them, I have both my thumbs and my index fingers peeling skin again. Big, huge chunks of skin. Also, my nose has the soreness in the front corner, where my little camps were living before. All after just 6 days.

So, it's back on the band wagon. I feel very much like an alcoholic - carbs are my drug. It's quite clear to me.

I think the blog is helping. Even though none of you are reading is yet, it's public, and therefore making me forge ahead. Thanks for reading and letting me share this experience. I hope to deliver to you my promise of losing the weight and getting down into a healthy range.

So, do I keep with my plan of fasting again, for 21-28 days this next time? I think so. That was the plan as it came to me, so I think I need to stay with that. Maybe if I just stop the carbs, the weight will fall off again. So which is the real weight? That remains to be seen. Thanks again. Talk at you tomorrow.