My Struggle With Weight and Body Image

Today's Attire: Black sleeveless dress with white polka dots (Macy's $42), black knee length boots (Torrid $55)

Outfit Justification: I was in so much pain from a spin class yesterday anything on my body would have hurt. I found the easiest thing I could find.

 My Struggle With Weight and Body Image:

At this very moment, I'm sitting in my bedroom behind a locked door in the dark. I’m in the lowest spirits I’ve been in a long time. Even as I attempt to write this, I have to stop to clear away tears.  But I feel compelled to write because I hope in some way it will help.
I’ve been dealing with my struggle with weight for years. Some days I’m fine and I can deal. And then there are days like today where I all I want to do is hide from the world because I feel so horrible and ugly and fat. I can’t even tell you how much self loathing and disdain I have for myself at this moment. 

Since January I’ve really tried to follow a healthy eating plan, add some physical activity to my life and forgo drinking so I can slim down and be a healthy weight by the time my 40^th birthday rolled around.  It’s been almost 3 months and the weight loss progress has been so slow it’s maddening. And even though I’m fighting thyroid disease and taking medication and I know it’s working against me in so many ways, I still try to push forward in hopes that the weight will come off. It was coming off at a steady rate leading up to my trip to Chicago. I didn’t make my own personal goal of trying to get under 200 pounds before I left for the trip and that was disheartening. Since I’ve returned the scale keeps going up.

This week has proved difficult. I had a rough week at work last week, but I still did my best to workout and do the best that I could with eating. I even took a spin class that I was in no condition to take because I’m so heavy.  My body hurts so much for 50 minutes of pure torture.  This morning when I stepped on the scale because it was my weigh in day, and it read 208.1 and all I could do was sob.  I was 3.1 pounds up from last week. 7 pounds heavier than I was less than 3 weeks ago.   I feel like a humongous failure. This probably sounds awful and vain and not a big deal to someone who isn’t me, but this hurt my spirit.  I feel like no matter what I do, I’m always going to be fat. 

That’s just the physical part of it all. Here’s the mental part.  When it comes to me and my friends, I’m the fat girl. In 9 times out of 10, I’m the heaviest of all the women in my group of friends. I know they don’t see me that way, but I see me that way. Even when I’m working out and happen to look around me, I’m that fat girl at the gym. Yes I’m trying to do something about it, but it doesn’t change the fact that I’m the heavy one.   It’s the one thing I notice when I’m out and about.  In my head all I keep hearing is “your friends are so attractive and slim, and you’re the fat one” Maybe its because I grew up in Southern California that I see myself this way, but I’m the big girl.  Even in yesterday’s class I noticed that I was the fat girl who was having problems sitting on that seat because I’m so heavy.  I feel like everyone is judging me because I’m that person.  The rational side of me says that no one is really thinking that, they’re only focused on themselves, but I’m so self conscious I feel like the world is staring at the fat chick in the class. I’m the one struggling to keep up because I’m so heavy and unathletic. 

I do my best to not behave like that woe as me I’m fat girl.  I try to make up for being big by wearing something stylish. Being the outgoing personality.  But I’m so angry at myself for being so heavy.  Although I post a bunch of pictures of myself on Facebook to document all the things I do and who I’m with and what clothes I’m wearing, I wince every time I see a picture of myself.  In every picture I see all I see is how big I am.  I was with my in-laws on Easter and my husband was showing them pictures from my friend’s wedding and our trip to Chicago. And all I could think was, I thought I looked good that day and in all these pictures I look huge. Despite wearing a black dress and wearing my favorite color, in my hair, in my shoes, all I saw was how much larger I looked compared to all my good friends. It was heartbreaking. 

Today I was doing my best to get through work and not just fall apart. I was tired, and hurting. Walking, sitting and breathing was difficult because of the pain. All I felt was the shame of all the weight I gained. I felt awful.  I know it’s in my head. Yes I’ve discussed this with a therapist in the past. But I have to say that I feel terrible that I do this to myself. I hate looking in the mirror everyday. I don’t feel attractive. Even though my husband tells me every day that he thinks that I am. I struggle with hearing the compliment. I’ve never truly felt like I was attractive.  Even when I was smaller, I never felt it.  And I hate that I struggle with this. 

Right now all I want to do is give up, because it’s so hard. But I know that I will try again tomorrow and struggle some more.  And this war in my head will continue and I’ll try to overcome it. But at this moment in time, my heart is so heavy, and so is the rest of me.  I wonder if I will ever get past this.  I know there are people who have bigger and more important problems than this. And I feel stupid for even having this problem, but that’s how I feel.