Time to Enter the Fireswamp

First things first: I want to give a health update.

Yesterday morning I weighed 240 pounds even. My health is generally fine, the skin around my finger nails and on my toes peels off regularly; it, I've come to learn, happens when I'm eating carbohydrate heavy foods. I'm not eating as many carbs these days. But I'm apparently eating enough to keep the skin peeling. My face is quite broken out. My body has acne on the arms, chest and a few on the thighs. My belly. My belly is so big - I used to have pretty strong stomach muscles, as I just kind of naturally walked around holding my stomach in. Now, it's not worth it. I have a belly, and now it seems my stomach muscles have given up and are pushing that belly out to the world. It is huge. I find myself putting the elastic of my pajama pants up over the top of that belly, which begins just below my breasts. I used to have a waist - even though I was heavy before, I had a distinct hour glass figure. I am past the point of an hour glass. Now my body has no way of holding that shape. It's like it just has to put the extra fat stores somewhere, and that small section was lacking, so they started piling it there.

I feel a little more than depressed. I feel like there's no way out. Even though I started this journey planning on touching second base if you will by gaining the weight, I've been stuck here for quite a while, unable to see how to round third - ie, losing the weight - to go for home - living a healthy life.

Enter yesterday's day at work.

I have mentioned before I have been named Wellness Captain for the Home Depot that I work at. I have also mentioned that the irony of me being Wellness Captain and weighing 240 pounds at 5'7" tall is not lost on me.

Yesterday started the first day of our corporately-created weight loss challenge, "8 Pounds in 8 Weeks."

I timed the meeting to coincide with our Fresh Fruit Friday. I planned on having people come into the training room, which is right next to the break room, to have a private conversation about their weight loss goals. Because who would want to say outloud that they want to lose weight, or say it around horrible thin people who just want to mock you for needing to lose weight.

There are about 20 people in the break room. I announce we are going to have the meeting for the 8 pounds in 8 weeks in the training room, but that first I would let everybody kind of eat the fruit. Well, everybody's just hanging out in the break room. I say again, well, we'll have people come into the training room next door.

Finally, one of the guys says, "Let's not move. Let's just have it in here."

I look around the room. There are about 15 to twenty people, and to my judgement, many who don't need to lose the weight.

To cut to the chase, I handed out the information to everyone in the room. They all listened. They all wanted to be a part. Some said they just wanted to get back into the habit of daily excercise, some said they had a lot of weight to lose and needed the jumpstart. But to my surprise, everyone in that room, at least in that moment, wanted to participate.

It was my own judgement about who or who should not be participating that I had to get through to get us started. Just interesting to me, that's all.

Here's the part about entering the fire swamp: It's a self-weigh-in program; and in all reality, people don't get points for weigh loss. They get points for daily physical activity, for eating their fruits and veggies, and for drinking their water. That's it.

People are laughing about the self weigh-in part of it, at how much room there is to fudge results with it being self monitored. One of the guys says, "So, if it's self weigh in, you must weigh about one hundread and five, Ann?"

It hit me like a bullet to the heart.

My knee-jerk reaction in all situations is to laugh and say, "Oh, yeah, you got that right!" It's amazing how well that comment works to diffuse people from seeing any show of emotions; or, at least, I always thought that it worked. I was clearly hurt by his comment. I pushed through that, and continued with the meeting, and it broke up a few minutes later.

I went to the bathroom to clear up my teary eyes. So, clearly, there is no way that I weigh 105 is what he said. Clearly, I am no where near a picture of health.

It hit me so hard - in my mind, I am clearly a physcially active, an outdoorsy, a let's-go-on-a-walking-adventure around the city type girl who is currently simply wearing a fat suit. Other people can't see that? I was seriously shocked.

I sit in the bathroom for a minute; I don't know what it is about bathroom floors, maybe it's the stillness of a bathroom that I'm drawn to, maybe the tile makes it feel temple-like to me, I don't know, but when I'm truly troubled that tends to be my thinking place of choice - sliding down the wall to sit on the cool tile of the floor.

I cried for a bit at the realization that I am not presenting my true self; my true, active self. Then I went to anger - I'm doing this for safety, you little shit! i thought. I would gladly be thin, I vented internally, were it not for stupid little shittin' guys like you who decide they want to date me and relentlessly pursue because they just can't understand that a person, and an attractive person, and an attractive person who is single, could possibly just have fun talking to you and not feel the need to fuck you. YOU are the reason, you little asshole. YOU. I have met your kind a hundred times, and I can tell you right now you little fuck that you'd be the one who'd be all like, let's go out let's go out let's go out and when I repeatedly politely say no would continue let's go out let's go out let's go out and when i start getting bitchy would continue let's go out let's go out let's go out and when I get angry in an effort to get you off my back would then say well jesus why you gotta be such a cunt about it?

I sat in the bathroom and pondered that. I realized that maybe it's time to make some changes. Maybe it's time to face my fears. It might even be time to have the strenght to be considered a bitch.

I set a little deal with myself yesterday. A deal of exploration. A deal that I felt I could work through. I hope you will see it reveal itself as we go along. That's all for today. Thanks for listening.