In My Most Vulnerable Moment...The Scales Tipping

I feel like I have struggled with what the right way to document my weight journey was. How was I to express emotions that effect women around the world without categorizing or improperly applying a stigma or being unfair to people or perpetuating stereotype that results in more hate or judgment? So, I have kept quiet about it. I know what the three numbers read on the scale day in and day out and my husband knows what the numbers read and I figured that was good enough right? Until today when I saw a Facebook status that directed me to a website that promoted skinny bodies – a website whose domain I refuse to type in my blog because I will not be responsible for giving her more hits or more traffic.

As I read some of the things the author of the blog (who chooses to remain anonymous) had stated and the comments that her supporters had written, I got piping angry.  Women struggle with body image no matter what size we are.  I can vouch for this because today, I am going to publicly address my weight loss/regain/lose again (ongoing) struggle.

So here it is folks, in black and white for the world to see.   I was at my all-time heaviest, 5 feet 7 inches, tapping out the scales at 210 pounds.  I’m not proud of that. It isn’t easy to announce it.  When I decided I wanted to lose weight it was because I wasn’t personally happy with myself.  It wasn’t about my husband. It wasn’t about my family. It wasn’t about awful people like the host of the skinny site saying I was the ugliest thing on the planet.  It was about my desire inside myself to make a change to reach a happier goal.

So I set out on a journey that led me to a weight loss of 60 pounds.  I lost a child worth of weight people.  So at my thinnest, in my adult life (the day before I left for my honeymoon cruise) I weighed 149 pounds.  I fit into a size 6 comfortably and I could force myself into a 4 if I didn’t want to eat that day.  I got there through hard work and discipline.  I didn’t eat one pumpkin flavored thing that fall.  I didn’t eat my holiday dinners for that matter.  Instead I opted for a protein shake and broccoli with a 4 ounce slice of turkey while everyone else enjoyed the homemade rolls and mashed potatoes.  I didn’t eat pecan pie.  On Christmas I didn’t eat a ham.  I didn’t eat any Christmas treats – cookies, fudge, none of it.  I didn’t celebrate New Year’s with the pizza and dip like my company did. I drank tap water and pretended it was all the same.  My birthday came and I had salad and chicken.

Here is what I learned:

I was miserable.  I hated it.

I am a big boned gal, I have been my whole life.  My BMI was at the lowest end when I weighed 149, nearly into the unhealthy range, but according to every weight chart I could find I still have another 15 pounds to lose before I was healthy.  So I became obsessed with my weight.  I went from being the fat person obsessed to the skinny person obsessed and I learned that counting every calorie and allowing no cheat days had me feeling just as awful and miserable about myself as weighing 210 pounds did.

So I did what any mature adult would do and gained 25 pounds. 

Ok, so that isn’t what most mature adults would do. AND it wasn’t all just due to my eating whatever I wanted.  Part of it was due to some medical issues I was having and prescriptions I was taking that were out of my control.

So there I was at 174 and not feeling any better than I did at 210 OR 149. Until my husband gave me some perspective and said this to me: “Ayzlynn, 160 was always your goal.  That weight puts you right smack in the healthy BMI range for you and you can wear a size 6.  Why did you lose sight of that? That was your healthy place.”

So I am on a journey that is less about weighing an exact number again and more about fitting into my size 6 formal.  It is less about what those damned 3 numbers on the scale say and more about what my healthy BMI tells me when I am at the doctor.  It is less about thinking I need to look like a model and more about learning my own inner peace. It is less about living up to a societal standard and more about believing that I am on infinite worth and my insides are the most beautiful part of me.

So there is all my ugly.  There I am revealing numbers almost all women keep locked up and secret because we don’t reveal our weight. It’s not what we do.  Well, I did it.  And I didn't do it anonymously so that I could hurt other people or attack other women behind a black shield.  I did it and I hope it empowers whatever woman might read this to believe that she has to find her own version of happy and healthy and that isn’t dictated by nasty fat haters or nasty skinny haters or a freaking body weight chart.  If you can rock a size 2, a size 10, a size 16 or a size 48298098 and feel good about yourself and are healthy, freaking do it! We all have different bodies, therefore we all have a different healthy.

The author of the blog that got me so fired up says she is 5’7” and weighs around 100 pounds.  I am 5’7” and in this picture I weigh 149 pounds.  You tell me, if I lost 49 MORE pounds what exactly do you think I would look like? Because in my mind what I would look like is nobody’s version of beautiful.