Obesity

I AM OBESE . I am not fat, fluffy, over weight, porky, chubby, full figured, vertically challenged. I AM OBESE.

I realized that at 3 AM things often look most bleak but perhaps they also are the truest because there is nothing else to distract us. I am awake and so disgusted with myself that I am turning to my blog as a means of help. I ate too much for dinner (and breakfast and lunch for the past 50 years) and am now paying the price. Once again I ask myself "How stupid can I be?". But enough with the name calling. Let's take all I have learned over the past years and start putting some of this to use with your help. If I do this now I can't talk myself out of it and I have witnesses that I am now accountable to. (Even though I know there are only about 2 of you who read this, that is enough.)

I have always been larger than normal. Or at least I have always thought I was fat. But on the other hand I always thought I looked good. In my dreams I am a "normal" person. I live my life as a "normal" person but I am OBESE. We are talking a good 65 pounds over a healthy weight. My cardiologist has told me to lose weight, my GP has told me to lose weight. I know I NEED to lose weight and yet I continue to eat too much and make poor food choices. I have gained and lost hundreds of pounds over the years. Gain 20, lose 15. Gain 30, lose 20. Amazing how I can focus on the weight I have lost and not the weight I have gained. When I start to see the pounds creeping back on I delude myself with the lies that it is only 5 pounds and I can lose them real quick. But I never do lose them. Those 5 stick around and bring in another 5 to keep them company. Next thing they are inviting 10 more pounds to join the fun and before I know it I AM OBESE.

UGH . . . I hate that word! But I think I need to keep saying it to myself to make myself understand that this is a serious problem and I am not just a LITTLE over weight. I am one of the umpteen million Americans who is OBESE. I play the games, like looking around and finding someone who is fatter than me. (It is getting harder to play because all of a sudden I am the one that everyone else is using as the "fatter than me" person.) I look in the mirror and I DON'T see an OBESE person. I see me. Same old me. A bigger version but it is still me. It's like the problem I had with my computer this past week. Some how or other I enlarged the entire screen to 200%. Everything was hanging off the page. It was all the same old stuff but BIGGER! Well, that's me when I look in the mirror. It's still me but I am bigger. But bigger also brings a lot of baggage with it. BIGGER IS NOT BETTER !!!
My baggage is a bad back, aches in my hips and knees, all sorts of gastric distress, (which is why I am up at 3 AM), my feet hurt, my shoulders and neck hurt. Nothing in my closet fits me and worst of all I CAN'T KEEP UP WITH THE GRAND KIDS.

SO . . . I am throwing down the gauntlet! It's food or life ! I need to make the decision that food is only fuel for my body. It is not a reward or a comfort. Food is a means to an healthy body, not the path to an early death. I LOVE to eat. I enjoy flavors, textures, smells. All that goes along with good food. But I don't know when to stop or when to say NO in the first place. Just because food is there I know I don't HAVE to eat. I need to conquer the "I WANTS", the cravings and the mindless eating that I do because the food is there.

Are you ready to do this with me ? It is a battle and I know I am not alone but this is MY battle. We all do things for our own reasons and I need to figure out mine. That is a problem I have always had . . . I need to know WHY. But maybe that is the first step for me right now. Never mind the why, Let's just get to the doing.

Today's goal . . . ADD one piece of fruit to my diet and SUBTRACT a carb. Sounds pretty easy. Let's see how this goes.