Once Upon A time
Once upon a time there was a girl who was overweight. But she saw the light and she lost her extra weight and bought a whole new wardrobe and new makeup and styled her hair differently and everywhere she went the birds sang and small forrest creatures followed her around and stared at her with devoted admiration. A tall, dark handsome man with perfect teeth and a broad vocabulary swept her off her feet and they spent all their days traveling to exotic places and all their nights watching Downton Abbey and drinking red wine and eating organic food.
No. No, that’s not my story.
Once upon a time there was a girl who was overweight. But she realized that because she was overweight she was missing out on stuff that seemed like an awful lot of fun. So she whipped herself into shape and ate nothing but vegetables (the really serious kind, like kale and parsnips and brussels sprouts and beets) with an occasional smattering of fruit. And then one day, she drove by a Whataburger and remembered how good those all beef patty covered with melted cheese and flanked by a greasy bun with all the fixins’ used to taste. And all the organic food and all the Billy Blanks’ Tai-Bo videos couldn’t put Humpty together again. She gained everything back, and then some.
No, that’s not it either.
Once upon a time there was a girl who was overweight. For a very long time, she accepted this as something that was simply fact. Something she couldn’t change. And then, one day, she realized that she could change it. So she employed her common sense, will power, and ability to self-educate and within a year’s time, she was in an entirely different place. For the first time ever, she didn’t have her clothes organized by size and she didn’t worry so much about pool parties or last minute outings or about people taking pictures and putting them on Facebook. She wasn’t scared anymore. She started to really live.
But then, perhaps because she wasn’t as sure of herself as she thought she was, or perhaps because she just didn’t realize the breadth of the commitment a “lifestyle change” would require, she began to slip. Exercise became more and more infrequent. She gave herself permission to eat the foods and the quantities of food that she used to eat, in the “before” days. She dabbled in dating, but it was a foreign land to her and when insecurities surfaced, she turned to her old coping mechanisms. Food. Food. More food. And living became less, and the existing became more.
There. Right there, is where she found herself two years after beginning her journey. It wasn’t where she wanted to be, and after months of swinging back and forth on a pendulum between dieting legalism and hopeless fat-must-be-her-destiny fatalism, she was ready to make a choice.
Being human, she realized, is to have certain proclivities. And hers were for the sweet and savory things of life. For many mornings in a row, she woke up early and contemplated her position while spirals of steam rose from her coffee cup and tickled her nostrils. Where to go from here? How to begin the going? What to change, so that maybe the going will go until it’s finished this time? She journaled these things and made a plan.
First. She changed her environment. She went from a house with five people far from work (much too far to be able to cook healthy food on a regular basis) to a small home with one roommate about six minutes from work (that she could easily get to and invest the time in making meals that supported her overall goals).
Second. She dropped the timeline. Losing weight fast would be good. Losing weight permanently, the right way, would be much better.
Third. She resolved that she would accept herself, warts and all. That she would maintain a sense of realism, so so as not to become a victim in life, and a sense of humor, so that she would remember to laugh at herself.
Yes. That’s my story. My priorities are realigned, and I’m ready to write again. And I’m buckled up, for safety, obviously.
