“Do you have any thoughts on where your body naturally wants to be? A weight where you felt good, you know, before this all started?" My dietician, Gretchen would casually weave these questions in during our sessions. She was trying to establish a loose weight restoration goal for me based on my history and genetics rather than relying on the often misleading standard height weight chart. Every body is different.
“I don’t know,” I would answer, frustrated, “I just can’t remember a time I wasn’t trying to control my body is some way.” My body naturally wants to be as big as a double wide is what I was really thinking.
I did find a sweet spot though thanks to Dr. Phil and my obsessive food tracking. A weight where my body seemed to be happy, and thanks to the smaller number on the tag in my jeans, my
mind was happy too. Once I focused, the weight just seemed to fall off. It was as if my body was just waiting for me to put down the chips and shed those pounds, allowing my true thinner self to be revealed. Within a few months of following the Ultimate Weight Loss
Solution, I reached my ten-pound baby weight loss goal and did what I had promised myself I would do. I went shopping for smaller clothes. But, much to my surprise, I had jumped the gun as my body wasn’t done losing, and soon thereafter I found myself having to buy a size even smaller. Yippee, more shopping! ` (Thank goodness, my mom worked at a clothing boutique, had a killer discount and LOVED to buy clothes for my sis and I). I didn’t get rid of my old wardrobe however because I liked the way the old stuff now fit, pants that were once tight around my waist now slung loosely across my hips and shirts that pulled snugly across my broad shoulders now draped unrestrained on my frame. Although the baggy look may not have done my new body justice, I preferred the feeling, big clothes made me feel small. Although I was smaller, my weight was well within the healthy range for my height, according to the afore mentioned height weight chart anyway, and as an extra bonus I felt fantastic. Energy to burn.
If this period of weight loss was difficult or extreme for me, I don’t remember it being so. Perhaps it is a similar thought process to giving birth or running a half-marathon, in the moment you wondered what the hell you were thinking only to eventually forget the sweat and tears and remember only the baby and the medal. My memories don’t include feeling hungry or deprived, in fact I recall mornings of creamy oatmeal with brown sugar, bananas and rich black coffee, and family dinners of savory barbeque chicken, sweet corn on the cob and buttery chardonnay enjoyed our back patio. But mostly I remember feeling thin. Feeling able to pop on cute jeans and a top for a night out without trying on eight different outfits looking for the one that made me feel the “least fat”, or getting into a crowded pool with my kids for swim lessons without worrying about people noticing my poochy stomach.
This is what I had been wanting my whole adult life, to feel thin, energetic, and confident. I should be thrilled, right? But I wasn’t. There are just some problems a pair of skinny jeans just can’t fix.
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