Am I fit and healthy or am I flabby and fat? Am I conditioned and ready for battle, or have my former fat girl years done so much damage to my joints that they will always be my downfall?
WHO am I? Am I a fit 166 pound woman or that girl who weighed 327 just 4.5 short years ago?
So many of the battles we fight with weight and dieting are on a battlefield that is easily visible to the outer world. You can see us out there fighting the good fight, fighting the food fight...but the real battle happens long after the lights have gone down and the friends and followers have returned safely home and snuggle in their warm beds.
The hardest fought battle is in our mind. For those of you on this journey, you experience this. I think that the power that our former selves holds onto our psyche is quite incredible. And while we have talked before about how jacked up our brains are, it hit me again the other night while watching my favorite guilty pleasure on NetFlix...Nip/Tuck.
We started watching Nip/Tuck several months ago, and have finally caught up to the last season. So an episode comes on and Liz (an anesthesiologist in the plastic surgeons office), brings in a friend that she happened to meet at a nudist colony. Her friend was played by Danica Sheridan, and her characters name was Lola. Well Lola came into Christians office (the womanizing superficial appearance obsessed doctor) to have some of her moles removed. Christian, assuming that removing moles from her body would only be the beginning, also said the could do some tummy tucking or lipo for a discount. TO which Lola said no. She loved her body just the way it was. She lean leaned into Christain and said "Oh. You've never been with a big girl before have you?
If you have ever watched the show, you can see where this is going to lead. Yes. Christian and Lola end up having sex, and it turns out..."it was the best sex of his life"...which he struggles with because Lola's body does not match the image in Christian's head of what a perfect woman should look like.
He goes home and tells his wife about this sexual encounter and his wife just so happens to be Kimber. A former model, a former porn star,who has spent her live starving herself and dieting ....so she sees this betray as a pass to eat all the food she has always denied herself. Just in case you dont know what Kimber looks like, this is her
So blah blah, Christian feels guilty or disgusted that he liked sleeping with big girl and so he finds her in the kitchen by recovery only in her birthday suit.
The quality is rough, but you get the picture. And he says some hurtful things to her...and here is where MY brain comes into play...I felt like I was her. I feel like that ass and those thighs and those rolls are MY rolls. I feel like that is what I still look like. Now in all reality, my weight is closer to Kimber's than Lola's, but it occurred to me when watching this episode that the girl in my head is still that girl standing in the kitchen in that picture up there. That is who I think I look like MORE so than the skinny Kimber.
In most social situations I feel that people who don't know me still would report me out to their friends like "you know...the fat one"...or if not fat then "the big one". When Heather introduces me to someone I am usually thinking that THEY are thinking "why is Heather with someone who is fat since Heather is so fit". I just don't know what people think of me. I didn't really know 170 pounds ago either I guess.
On the flip side of not knowing how I come off, the other day I was talking about co teaching some of Heather's fitness's classes with her. She is really fit, she is good at putting a workout together, she does not enjoy leading the class, being the center of attention, or having to really give feedback during the class. All things I could help with. And I told her that she is scary and intimidating to some people because she is so fit....and that I am just one of "them"...I am just an average girl working out and that new people, or people who maybe aren't AS fit as Heather, can relate to me.
To which SHE said, " I dont know babe...since you have lost that weight you look like you are a beast and you are over there doing pull-ups...I don't think they think you are one of "them" anymore.
Well shit kettle bells why dont you? Im not below average. Im not average. But I am certainly not elite crazy i-wear-a-beanie-to-workout-in-the-middle-of-the-summer Heather Gainey. I am not above average either.
I don't know where I am. At 166 and 5'4" I am only now just out of the obese category according to the BMI charts.
puh-shaw.
I hope the tone of this post doesn't sound Debbie Downer. I am mentally doing well today. But it just struck me crazy that Kimber was the enemy in my mind, and I could have switched places with Lola and all her fat and no one would have notice....again...in my mind. Such a scary place to be sometimes!