I am Obese

 

I am obese.

It is one of the most painful things I must admit about myself. I don’t feel obese.

The image I have of myself does not correlate with the reality of my size.  I am a fantastic person, with spunk and a great smile and I look as good today as I did 20 years ago… in my mind. I am only reminded that I am obese when I look in the mirror.

I feel disappointed that my physical appearance is not as it is in my head.  I am working on getting the physical to match the image I have of myself, but it is a work in progress.

 

I have food issues.

I have health issues.

I have control issues.

I have years of ignoring what was good for me and just doing what satisfied me.

I have years of growing up in a restrictive home, where LOTS of food was off limits, and all food was controlled and distributed base on someone else’s opinion of what I should eat.

I have years of finally being free to make my own choices about food and choosing EVERY item that was EVER off limits to me as often as possible… because I could.

I have years of addiction issues, and replacing one addiction with another.

I have issues.  I have many issues.

 

I am obese because I have issues.

I am obese because I have made bad choices.

I am obese because I am lazy.

I am obese because I am.

I own my obesity.  I own the health issues that have come with my obesity.

I don’t blame my obesity on the hamburger I choose to eat one to many times. I don’t blame my obesity on the dozen donuts that were calling my name so I ate them all.

I don’t blame my obesity on health issues that thousands live with and are not obese with.

I don’t blame my obesity on my mother who actually showed me the right way to eat… just in the wrong way.

I don’t blame my obesity on my failed relationships, my abusive ex-husband or my daddy issues.

I don’t blame my obesity on the fact that I really like food.

I blame my obesity on myself… because I am the one who has made the choices.  I am the one who indulged, binged and ignored.  There is nothing else, or anyone else to blame.

Don’t mistake my self-blame for shame though.  I am not ashamed of the fact that I am obese.  I don’t like that I am obese, but there is no shame in it.  I know how I got here… beating myself up for it, putting myself down for it… that all only adds fuel to the fire of issues that lead me here in the first place.

There is no point in feeling shame for things I cannot go back and change.

Don’t mistake my acceptance of my situation as an acceptance of my weight.  Just because I don’t allow shame to rule and control me, does not mean that I am going to let my obesity own me either.

I have been actively working on improving my overall life style for the last year.  It is a process, one I am deliberately taking slow, making sure that each change, each step I take to lose weight, is also a step that will improve my overall health and will be something I can maintain for the rest of my life. Owning my weight, accepting what got me here and that I cannot change the past has been part of this process.

I know that people look at me and wonder why I allow myself to be overweight.  I know that people look at me and wonder how it is that I can smile and be a joyful person, looking the way that I do.

What people don’t understand is that my size does not define me.  My size does not dictate my joy.  My size does not have a say in how I live and how I feel.  My size does present obstacles, but again, I refuse to let my obesity own me.

I don’t want to be overweight.  I have spent a lot of time making sure that I am dealing with the issues that got me here so that as I lose the weight, as I find the skinny girl that has been here all along I don’t make the poor choices I did to end up obese.  I did not gain all this weight overnight and I certainly will not lose it all overnight.  Addressing what got me here; working on all those issues is just as important as eating right, eating well and finding my groove again.

I am obese.

It is not easy to say.

It is not easy to accept.

It is not who I am.

I am obese, for now, at this moment.  I will not always be obese.

The day is coming where the image I have myself will also be the image everyone else sees and I will be whole!

Day 23 – 30 Days of Thankful

Today I am thankful for my baby girl, better known to all of you as T-Dog!

She is my baby.  The youngest of my 3 children, she is my rainbow baby. She was born one year to the day of my last miscarriage.                               She came into the world fast and on fire and has been going full steam ahead ever since.  She is my wild child.  She is sugar and spice, not to mention naughty and nice. She wants to grow up so fast, yet stay a child forever.  She still wants to snuggle with her daddy and be my best friend.  My world is so much more colorful and entertaining with her in it.

She is at work with me today, she wants to earn some money to buy Christmas presents for her brother and sister.  She asked my boss what she could do to earn $20. We gave her the job of decorating the office Christmas tree.  She has to use a step stool just to reach the middle of the tree.  She is placing each ordainment in just the right spot, making sure she is doing her job just right.  Three hours she has been at it, stopping every once in awhile to step back and make sure it is the best job she can do.  I am sitting here watching her work so hard to, in her words fill the office with joy and it just fills my heart!

I have been blessed with three of the most incredible people I will ever know.  Each of them are as different as they are similar and I love them each in unique and special ways.  My T-Dog, my Boo, my baby… she has the soul of an angel, and the spirit of a fighter and I am so thankful each and every day that God graced me with the job of helping her along her journey through life!

 

 

 

Day 22 – 30 Days of Thankful

Today I am thankful for patience.

I use to think that I was an extremely patient person. I could remain calm when a child took a long time to eat.  I could remain focused when I had to stand in line for a long time.  I could help someone who was having a hard time with something, or wait for someone to come around to an idea or situation.  The older I get though, the more I understand that patience is about understanding and accepting and embracing… not just waiting on something or someone.  Patience is about digging deep and standing tall.  Patience is about owning your emotions, respecting others and learning how to handle all types of situation.  Patience is so much more than just waiting.

Today I am thankful not just for the patience that I poses, but  I am thankful for the patience that other people poses.

For every ounce of patience I struggle to maintain, I know that there are others around me, struggling with  finding patience as well. Understanding that patience does not come easy to most of us and practicing patience while dealing with others who are also working on their patience is a big part of what patience s all about is so important.  Patience is not something we are born with, but rather develop and evolve as we grow and evolve.

Patience is one of those innate things in life that we all take for granted. Patience is one of those innate things that we assume every other human has.                                                                                                                           Patience is one of those innate things that we all assume we have, but don’t full understand what it means to have.

I am thankful to know that I poses some patience, and that I am learning just what it means to be patient and to use it my patience in a better way.

 

 

 

 

 

Day 21 – 30 Days of Thankful

Today I am thankful that I have the means to provide a Thanksgiving for my family.

We have not always been so lucky.  We have had to rely on others just to eat.  We know hard times.  We understand what it means to go without.

It is so easy to just assume that everyone is going to have a Thanksgiving dinner.  It is so easy to just assume that everyone is going to be among family and friends for Thanksgiving.  It is so easy to just assume that everyone is going to be warm and healthy for Thanksgiving.  Nothing rarely is as we so easily assume.

We have always been fortunate enough to have people in our lives who have made sure that if nothing else, we have a warm meal on Thanksgiving.  If it had not been for these people, opening their homes and hearts to us, there would have been little chance that we would have been able to have a dinner at all, let alone a Thanksgiving meal.

This time of year I am always reminded of those tough years for us.  The years where all we wanted to do was ensure our kids had a place to call home and food on the table, and we did not know one day to the next if that was going to be possible.  Those were some of the longest days of our lives.  We used every resource we had available to us, even when it meant we had to eat our pride and take a hand out.  We learned that it is okay to ask for help, when you need help, when your kids need you to be stronger than you are proud.  I never forget those times.  I accept that we are not to far removed from those days and the sadness that lived within me during those days still keeps me humble.

So today, as I was casually walking through the grocery store, getting all the things I needed to make my family a wonderful Thanksgiving meal, splurging on fancy dinner rolls and expensive cheese, because this year I could… I was overcome with the knowledge of just how thankful I was to even be in the situation to decide that we were worth the fancy dinner rolls and expensive cheese when there are so many, us once included who will be praying they get the box from the church or outreach program that will feed them, not just for Thanksgiving but for as long as they can make the food last because there is no guarantee that another meal will be headed their way.

 

 

Day 20 – 30 Days of Thankful

Today I am thankful for Girl Scouts!

I was never a Girl Scout.  For whatever the reason, it was just not an option that was given to me as a child.  I always wanted to be a Girl Scout.

T-Dog, my 10 year old daughter is a Girl Scout!  She is in her third year of being a Girl Scout! She loves being in Girl Scouts!  I love that she is in Girl Scouts.

Tonight she is spending the night in a museum with other Girl Scouts!  She is exploring an empty museum with maybe 100 other girls, all roughly her age.  She is sleeping in a museum, maybe under a T-Rex with girls her own age, bonding and growing together.

With Girl Scouts she had been able to do things that she otherwise might not have done.  She has been to the ballet. She has done volunteer work at an animal shelter, and she has gone to horse camp and learned all about horses.  She has sent thank you letters to our troops serving overseas and she has leaned how to shoot a bow & arrow.  She has learned about different countries, from other girls, and she has attend dances and art classes and sleep-overs.  She has made friendships with girls that will last and she has learned what it means to be a part of something.

Girl Scouts has offered my daughter a healthy and nurturing environment to form relationships with other girls who want to be good people.  Girl Scouts has offered my daughter the chance to grow and learn and to understand how important helping others, going through life with integrity and self respect really are.  Girl Scouts is about so much more than just selling cookies and I am so thankful that my daughter was given the option to be a part of such a wonderful organization and that I get to experience her, experience what it has to give her.

Day 19 – 30 Days of Thankful

Today I am thankful for my best friend.

When I talk about her on  Ruling The Nest I refer to her as Boobs… it’s been one of her nicknames for years and she loves it that I still use it.

Boobs and I have been friends for close to 18 years now.  We have had much discussion about how we became friends because honestly, one day we did not know each other and than the very next day we were inseparable.  It is weird to us that we have not been friends for longer because it just feels like we have known each other for all our lives.  We are soul-mates!

Boobs is my person.  There is no other way to put it.  I have a wonderful husband who is a great friend and a great partner and who I love with all my heart.  I have wonderful children who are my world and who I would do anything for. My husband and my children are my everything, but Boobs, she completes my circle.  There is this joke between me, Boobs and The Hubby about how I married the male version of my best friend, because they are oddly and freakishly alike.  She is the only other person on this planet next to my husband who knows all there is to know about me.  I don’t have a lot of people who I let get really close to me, I have trust issues.  I have been hurt by people I thought would always have my back.  I have hurt people too and lost trust in myself to be a good friend for a long time.  Boobs helped me regain some of that trust.  She reminded me what being a good friend means and how it is suppose to feel to trust someone.  I honestly don’t think that I would have the relationship I have with my husband if it was not for the relationship I have with Boobs.  She has always been the kind of friend who embraces me for me and loves all of me, even with all my faults.  Not only does this speak volumes for the kind of person that Boobs is… but it speaks to the kind of friend she has reminded me I am meant to be.  She is, without doubt one of only two people I know that I can trust, and that I know will be there for me 100% of the time.  She has provide herself and her love for me and support of me time and time again.

There is something amazing about knowing you have a person who you can turn to, who you can lean on, who you can support, who you can cry to, who you can laugh with, who you can vent to, who you can pray with, who you can sing with, who you can bare your soul to, who you can show the most vulnerable sides of yourself to, who you can complain about your spouse to, who you can listen to for hours, who you can go months without seeing, but not a day without talking to, who you can just look at and they know what you are thinking, who you can trust your children with, who you can trust your spouse with,  who will wipe away tears, who will hold your hair back for you when you are sick, who will hold your hand on your darkest days, who stand next to you on your greatest days, who will allow you to be, who will hold you accountable, who will understand when you say you want to run away, who you know will be right next to you every step of the way.

I am a better person because I have the best friend that I have.  Boobs makes me a better person.  We live 1000 miles apart now and yet I never feel like she is not right there next to me!!

Day 18 – 30 Days of Thankful

Today I am thankful for coffee dates!

The Hubby and I have been together for 15 years.  It feels like it’s been longer, I feel like I have spent my whole life loving this man!

We have never really been the “date night” kind of couple.  We go out sure, but usually we bring our kids… we like our kids, we like to take them places with us, we are okay with us doing the whole family night thing, for us it is just as relaxing and rewarding as it would be if it was just the two of us.

Recently however we have been going to coffee on Wednesday nights after we drop T-Dog off at Girl Scouts.  It has kind of turned into a date night thing for us.  Sure it is just coffee for an hour and a half while we wait for T-Dog to be done… but it has become our alone time together.  We are having adult conversations that are not revolving around our kids, our finances or our daily lives.  We are talking about politics and religion and plans for the future.  We are sharing things about work and current events.  We are talking like we are dating and getting to know the other person.

We have a good relationship, we have a normal relationship!  We bicker and we argue and we don’t always agree with one another, but we respect each other and we support each other and we are very good partners in life.  These coffee dates however have given us back a little of that couple piece of us that so often gets lost in the shuffle of life.  I get to spend time with my boy friend again, flirting and talking and being two people who like each other and are not just the husband and wife and parents that we are the rest of the time.

 

Day 17 – 30 Days of Thankful

Today I am thankful that I learned to accept my short comings and be the person I know I am.  I know that it seems like an odd thing to be thankful for, but really it is not.

Growing up I lived under the expectation of perfection.  Anything less than perfect… perfect grades, perfect appearances, perfect behavior, perfect friends, perfect outcomes was unacceptable.

I was the perfect daughter.  I smiled when I was suppose to smile.  I got all the right grades.  I dressed as I was expected to.  I never stepped out of line. I had polite and well behaved friends.  I won awards and competitions.  I was not any of the things I was expected to be, but I learned very early on in my life it was better to pretend to be the happy, smart, talented daughter who had good friends and never disappointed anyone then to let the real me shine through. I played the role I was expected to play, until one day I could not pretend any more.

It took a long time for me to break the chains of perfectionism and the hold they had on me.  It took me a long time after I stopped pretending to be perfect to understand what it meant to accept who I was and the faults I brought with me.  I still struggle with the desire to appear perfect.  When you spend so much of your life pretending to be something you are not so that others will accept you, it is hard to walk away from the acceptance.  It is lonely when you walk away, some people don’t accept a person who is flawed, and some people can not forgive when they have been let down.

I am who I am.  My short comings are as much a part of me as my strengths are.  I am not perfect.  I will never be perfect and I am okay with that.  I am exactly as I should be, because I am happy with who I am.  I still have my days when I feel like I have disappointed someone, where I feel like I did not live up to the ideal image that they have of me and become overwhelmed with the guilt of not being perfect… but then I remember that I owe nothing to anyone.  If I am okay with how I live my life, with how I handle a situation, with how I dress, or behave or who I associate with then it does not matter what anyone else thinks.

It is easy to forget that it is okay to be a person with faults.  I forget.  It is okay to forget from time to time, the important part is to remember that perfection is in the eye of the beholder!  Life is far less complicated and demanding once you let go of the expectations of perfection and just be who you are.

 

 

 

Day 16 – 30 Days of Thankful

Today I am thankful for the little moments in life.

We live busy lives.  There is always something that needs to be done, somewhere we need to be, someone who needs our attention.

We move along at what feels like warped speed toward a finish line we can’t see.  It is easy to get so caught up in life that the most perfect of moments don’t get seen, don’t get felt, don’t get acknowledged… But every so often, life slows down just enough to catch one of those little moments that reminds us of why we do it all.

The tender kiss on the check from your lover, butterfly kisses from your daughter, an “I love you mom” from your teenager.

These little moments, these perfect little moments, seem so simple and yet are everything some times.

They are so easy to overlook, so easy to just take and not think about what it is they are giving us.

Those moments when your daughter lays her head on your lap for the first time in like a month, just to show she misses you.

Those moments when your husband wraps his arms around you as you stand at the stove cooking for your family, just to show he appreciates you.

Those moments when you son hands you a flower he picked on his way home from school because he thought you needed it.

These are the little moments in life, the ones that just happen, with no fan fair or build up.  These are the little moments that make up all the moments of our lives, yet we don’t always see them for what they.

I am thankful for all the little moments of my life.  I am thankful that I was reminded just how special all the little moments of my life really are!

 

Day 15 – 30 Days of Thankful

Today I am thankful for perseverance.  It is not always easy to keep at something you don’t feel like you are succeeding at.  To follow something through to the end, to keep working on something until it is done, to strive toward a goal until it is achieved… it is a rewarding and uplifting thing, but it does not come easy.  Well, I guess I should say it does not come easy to me.  I have to work for my success.  I have to put my head down and get my stuff done.  If it was not for perseverance I don’t know that I would achieve half of what I achieve, I don’t know that I would come through half of what I come through.

Perseverance is hard to teach.  I don’t remember anyone teaching me the importance of staying strong, of keeping the eye on the prize and working hard to get what you want.  It is important that I try to teach my kids what I know about perseverance, because it is something I want instilled in my children.  I don’t know if they will get it yet… to hold on to their dreams, their goals, their wants and desires and to fight to make it all come true.  I hope they get it.  I hope they look at me and their dad and others around them who fought like hell to make dreams come true, to not give up on themselves, or their goals in life.  Being persistent, prevailing… it is an amazing thing and I am thankful that I know how amazing it is and use those feeling to keep on going even when I don’t want to.