Fat with Benefits

I just want to take a moment to appreciate the fact that there are lots of benefits to having always been a chubby (and now fat) person.

First of all, as a kid, chubby kids are the cutest. We have the most adorable chubby cheeks. We're punchable and cuddly. If you have the added benefit of being short in addition to chunky, you're like this pocket sized troll doll or something. You're just cute.

My baby brother and I about 18 years ago. Me, the adorable chubby kid, Baby Brother, the waifish, slightly less adorable kid. 

As you grow up with a more fat-inclined body, I found that I had one of two options - fight it or embrace it. As fighting it would have involved things like working out, I chose to embrace it. Any teen, any woman, for that matter, is going to have her insecurities, but by and large, I liked how I looked. Being chubby also meant I had boobs (despite coming from less boob inclined DNA) as well as a generous set of hips and behind, which I might not have always appreciated, but others did.

Oh, baby me. 17 and my senior portrait. All that hair!

So, like lots of people, I've gained some weight since high school, having found a comfortable and loving relationship, had two kids, and am now able to afford to buy lots of food. Unlike many others I know or seem to glean from people's blogs and vlogs, the weight I've gained doesn't seem to make me as crazy. Am I thrilled? Nope. Would I love to be the size 12/14 of the beautiful young lady above? Sure. But I don't have this nagging feeling that I'm missing out on something great in being thin again, because I was never thin to begin with. Never.

I have been aware of my body size since I was about 9 or so, when I realized my mum's wedding dress was too small to fit me. I have always been chubby, always will be chubby. I'm ready to really embrace.

Running Away

I went for my first run today since...oh, probably spring time. For a while I was a reasonably solid runner, able to run continuously for 4 to 5 miles, but now I'm back on the Couch to 5K plan. There's actually a really cool app (I think it's the official app for the C25K plan) that I used today that I think I'll continue to use in the future. I like it so much more than just using my watch because I only have to listen for the cue from the app to switch from running to walking rather than messing with my watch's timer.

My hope, naturally, is that I'll continue to run. I have plans to run every day for the rest of this week, and I know I can fit in a run next Monday and possibly Tuesday as well. I do worry, though, as school starts back up and then when I'm taking courses again if I'll be able to make time. I have an extremely hard time justifying making the time to run when I have work, school work, or housework to do, and I really can't afford to let anything in these departments slip because they all sort of teeter on the edge of being done (especially housework, and I really can't even consider that something that ever really gets "done").

I did also buy a kettle bell with some Christmas money in hopes that I will do some workouts with that on days I can't run. I also want to do some small yoga/stretching workouts to gain back some flexibility as my joints have been very stiff lately. These are a bit easier to manage in terms of time because I can do them with the kiddos around or before or after work. But running is my favorite way to workout. It's easy, in the sense that you just go and can think about other things and be outside. I never imagined myself as a runner, but every time I do it I become a runner, no matter how slow I am or infrequent my runs are. I'd love to run more, to make it my "thing."

Before the week is out I probably sit down and take a good look at my schedule for next week (back to work!) and see if I can figure out which days I can run. I'm not sure how the consistency will be, but if I look at things from a week to week basis then I'll have better odds and not get so overwhelmed with "doing it right" (that's a big problem of mine).

As I go down this road (ha!), my goals are shifting farther and farther away from a desire to run to lose weight, but to do something I've never done before and to be something I've never been before and to enjoy something I've never enjoyed before. I've wanted to run a 5K for  so many years now and I'd love to make that a goal for the year and follow through with it. Of course, I've made this goal a few times before, even registered for a 5K, and never followed through, so I already feel a bit discouraged. But maybe I won't let that discouragement stop me.

Oh, little baby steps, one step at a time. I'm going to try to not look to far ahead, try to stay optimistic, but not overburden myself.

Beauty of my Body

I'm like almost any other woman out there - I have some serious qualms about my body. There are parts of it and moments in my day where I'm sort of just disgusted with it. I feel shame, sometimes, and I make lots and lots of comparisons. I pass judgements on other women, and I interpret their glances and whispers behind hands as judgements of me. I can sometimes value myself based on if I think other men think I'm attractive, if I think my husband is still being truthful when he says I'm beautiful. I can be incredibly insecure.

But there are also lots of moments where I feel good about my body. These moments tend to occur more often than the other, more negative ones. I've touched on this before, but maybe not so outright, and I'm going to be super upfront right now. I really like my body. I really do. I don't have a problem being naked, seeing myself naked, letting my husband see me naked. My stretch marks and fat and extra skin don't really bother me. Sure, there are moments where I would love to have a magic wand see it all go away, but by and large (Ha. No pun intended.) I enjoy my body. 

It's maybe because I've never been thin. I've always been chubby (and now just fat). It's not as though having children suddenly set me over the edge, so I'm not mourning some "perfect" body I had in my youth that children have now ruined. In fact, I got stretch marks before kids, too. That happened my freshman year of college. And when I wasn't so thin before I started to put on more and more weight (again, college), I really liked my body then, too. Again, I had insecurities, but for the most part I thought I my body was pretty great. 

The problem is now, as a person in her early twenties who's over-weight, I feel like I should be ashamed of my body, that there is something wrong with me for liking what I've got. I'm a smart person who does care about her health, so I shouldn't be satisfied with my figure. I should want better for myself. I should set a better example for my children. I should be healthier. I should be trying to improve things. 

I have a hard time distinguishing between my own thoughts and feelings and what the media says when it comes to all this, but I do know I want to be healthier, if only because I have a lot of shit to do and if I'm not given enough years to do it all in then I'll be pretty upset. But I've also noticed I'm a lot less concerned about how my body looks and what other people think when I spend time exposing myself to truly beautiful plus sized models and advocates on social media. When I see other women who look like me and are proud of themselves and their bodies it reaffirms that it is okay for me to like my body.

What's more, it becomes frustrating when other people don't see my body the way I see it. I'm not looking for universal popularity, but it would be nice to feel like it wasn't just me, my husband, and my toddler who thought I was beautiful. I'm not about to go on a diatribe about the judgement and shaming that goes into being over-weight or obese (or at least not yet), but it does exist and it hurts and can be a constant and consistently causes me to question my validity as a human being (like, literally, I question whether or not I'm worthy of purchasing lipstick or a certain kind of shirt strictly because I'm fat). 

It's a constant conflict, riding that line between loving myself, valuing myself, and battling overwhelming messages sent by society and the media. It's a battle I'm tired of fighting, to be quite honest. I'm really ready to stop caring about what others are thinking. 

On Feeling Hot

I was always one of those people who said, "Well, when I weigh x pounds I'll feel this way," or "when I'm x pant size, I'll feel this way."

Well, way back in the beginning of the summer I made the extremely arbitrary weight goal of 190 for August. Between my wham-bang weight-loss via the Whole30 (which was really a Whole12ish) and then doing a LOT of running, I lost 25 lbs. between June 1st and sometime in the last two weeks. I now have reached my weight-loss goal for the summer. (Yes, go ahead and do that math - I DID weigh that much, and no, I don't think I looked it either. Aren't I lucky?)

And guess what? I do feel this way! I mean, I didn't think I would. I honestly did not think I would feel significantly better about myself once I hit my goal, because everything I read says, "It's only a number on the scale," or "It's only a number on your clothes." Well, yeah, that's absolutely true, but it doesn't mean seeing a goal met or a being able to buy a size smaller isn't kind of amazing. I can't help but think about the last time I weighed 190. I was a freshman in college. Guys still hit on me (sorry, husband, but we both know it's true). There were clothes in J. Crew and Areopostle (how bad does that date me?) that fit me properly. It's like physically becoming a time capsule!

Of course, with this amount of weight-loss there have been other benefits - I can run and enjoy it (by far my favorite thing that's come of this). I feel great that I made and met a goal without making myself crazy. And I've learned so much about myself as a person this summer while working on my weight and overall health. The logical side of my brain, the part that wants to acknowledge the things that I'm supposed to acknowledge loves this stuff, but my more primal side (you know, the one left over from when I was about 19) is totally dying over the 190 lbs. and this picture:

Smokin', amairite? P.S. The dress is a size 14, a number I haven't seen on my clothes in 8 years.

This is all fantastic. My self-confidence has been given a well deserved boost, as well as my health. I think the way things are going are maintainable and will only improve (I'm in the thick of dealing with emotional/food stuff with Dona right now). Part of me is slightly concerned that I'm going to become complacent and stop running or being active or trying to be less aware of my eating. I try to calm that part of me down by reminding myself that while I lost 12 lbs. through very strict food restriction and some exercise, the other 13 lbs. came off via running and not binging like I used to. In fact, I didn't even really notice losing the other 13. I had stopped weighing myself and then one day, decided to, just for the heck of it, and was really surprised.


I'm having a really good time just loving myself right now. Loving the way I look and the way I am. I have my flaws, and boy do I have a long road to travel, both in weight-loss and in other areas, but I am starting to feel like maybe I can say I'm pretty great and I'm definitely, definitely feeling hot (guess my hubs was on to something when he told me that the other day...).