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People ask me all the time, how do you do what you do? The truth is, theres no other option for me anymore. I have not missed a run, let myself out of a workout, or even ever felt like giving up for as long as I can remember now. Granted, my best looks different every day. My workouts while I rehabbed my knee looked much different than they do now. But I got my 10,000 steps a day, and did every upper body workout I could construct. I kept up my cardio capacity and stamina in any way I could come up with. Now I’m back to running 10Ks and roller skating and getting back to what I’m used to.

I don’t run out of obsession. I don’t lift to wear bikinis. I do it because I love it. I know if I miss a run, life will go on. If I don’t deadlift on Fridays; no one would even notice. I do not have a fear that if I miss a workout I’ll gain 10 pounds. I don’t work out to punish myself or make sure I don’t gain the weight back. I absolutely love feeling what my body can do. I may not always be able to run like I can now, so I’m gonna appreciate every damn mile. Knowing what my body can do, tracking my progress, makes me know I’m growing and changing. It keeps me accountable in a very measurable way. Because the things I need to work on, the growth I still need, isn’t always so measurable.

After years of giving excuses, wishing life were different and being so unhappy, it’s easy to make healthier choices. The person I was, a person I grew to hate, isn’t all that far away. I spent a lot more years in that unhealthy body than I’ve spent in this one. That shadow is still there and the reminder of how bad things can be and feel. Even though I haven’t recognized that person in so long, but I still have her with me all the time. She still tries to influence my behaviors and reactions daily. This is a life long fight and process for me. Goal weight or not. Skin surgery or not. I’ll still fight this fight everyday to be the person I really want to be, which has been worth every bloody battle along the way.

Knowing what my body can do, tracking my progress, makes me know I’m growing and changing. I can measure my weight, my miles run, my deadlift and bench press PRs . It keeps me accountable in a very measurable way. Because the things I need to work on, the growth I still need to do, isn’t always so measurable. It’s hard to tally my people pleasing progress. There’s no growth chart for patience or comparison for my healthy vs. unhealthy reactions. If emotional growth could be charted per mile in comparison to my heart rate? I’d probably be a lot further along.

So yes, it’s easy for me. I don’t break plans with myself. I carve out my workout time and rarely let anything get in the way. I don’t give myself excuses. If I can, I will and I do. That’s the difference in being extraordinary and ordinary. It’s what allowed me to do this and carve out the life I wanted. While I’m still working on a lot of things in a lot of areas, I’m proud of my ability to motivate myself. This is who I am and the life I want. It’s easy for me to choose myself in this way and I’ve never looked back. The secret is though: anyone can do it. Anyone can make the decision to choose themselves. Anyone can do what I’ve done but so few have. What excuses are you telling yourself? Why aren’t you choosing yourself?

On June 11th, I completed another Spartan Super race and I felt stronger at racing than I had in a really long time. While we have done some races post COVID, I wasn’t nearly in the shape I had been years prior. I was really happy with my results of the race. It felt like I was finally taking a turn out of COVID and falling into some old habits. I love crossing finish lines and this was around my 20th obstacle race. I’ve lost count how many finish lines I’ve crossed, but it’s a feeling I can never get enough of. We did our traditional camping in the parking lot and stopped at my fancy club to enjoy the pool. We had signed up to run the Spartan Sprint the following day, like we’d done several years before. Fort Carson is one of my most favorite courses to run and I was excited to have another medal around my neck.

On June 12th, I got my first DNF after a severe injury on the course, having only completed half a mile. While attempting to traverse a monkey bar obstacle I’ve completed 10+ times, I fell and dislocated my left knee cap. I’ll spare you all the gory details of being rescued and hauled to the medic tent on a race course, but I will tell you I immediately reset my knee like a badass. I held my emotions together pretty well and took the pain better than I expected. But the moment it happened, I knew what it meant. Not only would I not finish the race that day, I wouldn’t be running for months after I had just fallen in love with running again. I would struggle at work and not be able to enjoy almost all of my usual summer pastimes. No river time or pools, no slip and slides, no roller skating or amusement parks. ADA parking and seating at events, people pitying me and thinking I’m broken, braces and physical therapy, and a total rehab of most of my leg….. it was all hard to handle at one time. How did I know? Because I’ve done this before. In high school, I had this same injury.

We went to the ER back home where they gave me a huge brace to keep my leg straight and crutches after Xrays and people rolling their eyes at how it happened. All the while, I’m thinking about how my entire world has just changed. On June 16th, I was starting a new job and would have to hobble in on day one, on crutches. At the time it seemed impossible to deal with it all at the same time, but guess what, I endured just like every other time. I spent 10 weeks in a full leg brace. I gave myself a day or two to be upset about it and then I slowly built a care team of people to help me. Asking for help continues to get easier and easier. Everyone I encountered wanted to know what happened and what they could do to help me. By the time I was done, I had 1 orthopedist, 3 physical therapists, 2 personal trainers, 2 therapists, an amazing husband and countless other friends and loved ones checking in on me and how I was doing. Everyone around me seemed to know: the mental aspect of being injured was going to effect me most.

I don’t know how many times I heard the phrase “I KNOW you.” while I was in recovery. (Which I still kinda am…) It felt good to have so many people looking out for me and knowing me well enough to help me through it. I’m now almost 4 months post injury and things are going well. There was a scare of possible surgery, there were so many opinions and recommendations, but in the end I decided to just let it heal and see what happens. The doctors are all happy with what they see and couldn’t have predicted any better results. The bad news in all of this is they found some serious deterioration of my knee cap from being dislocated twice. I have the left knee cap of someone in their 60s and they expect me to get another 15+ years out of it. Hopefully, science will come leaps and bounds by then and save me with some sort of other option. The good news is, asking for help, listening to experts, and holding yourself accountable works.

I never spent a day out of the gym and worked out however I could every single day I was injured. Whether it was walking for literally hours, or my 500th pull up, I did what I could. I rode the stupid bike; I lifted the tiny kettlebells I never touch; I was patient like I’ve never been before. Somehow, with all of those people helping me, I made it though without too much mental or physical breakdown. While I’m still not to 100%, I feel confident about my ability to get there and build my leg even stronger than before.

If this injury had happened this time last year, I would not have had this outcome. Maybe I wouldn’t have had the patience or grace to get through it at the appropriate pace. Maybe I would have sabotaged my recovery. Maybe it never would have happened because I wouldn’t have signed up for the race. But this year, I was strong enough. I was strong enough to race and get injured and get myself to the other side. Injuries suck. But it would have sucked more to not have had the mental fortitude to get through it. Thank you to every person that helped me along the way; it has made all the difference.

I have sat here with my open computer, cursor blinking in its own mocking way, a countless number of times. What is there to say about the last 2+ years that hasn’t already been said? Truth be told: I was empty. To sit and write takes energy and depth that I could not find. I’d sit here, after avoiding opening my computer for hours, and have no words to say. Back in early 2020, I had an ocean of motivation and creativity to get my message to you though quippy truths and the mockery of my former fat girl self. When the pandemic hit, that quickly turned to a puddle of uninspired and dishonest mumblings. And then it was just tears.

I have written this blog over the years for many reasons. I wanted there to be a semi-real time documentation to my weight loss and then personal growth. I wanted to help others understand their own journey and give a listening ear when reached out to. I wanted other people to know to be extraordinary is a choice and a very real possibility. But it’s also been a very real account of my personal truths. I often go back and read my posts like a letter to myself so I don’t forget. To sit in front of a blank screen and decide there’s a message that you have to say that only you can say, is a lot of pressure. A pressure I could not deal with for quite some time. To face a blank screen is like seeing your own reflection first thing in the morning after a rough late night. It holds all the truth you’re usually trying to avoid.

Let’s get to the real question I’m sure are on all my readers minds. Did she gain the weight back? And the answer is No. I did gain the traditional 15 quarantine pounds that we all enjoyed from eating curbside service and drinking to-go cocktails. My running lapsed for quite some time due to wild fires making the air quality outside nearly impossible and no access to a treadmill (gyms here closed for 3 months!). However, I kept a fitness routine during the entirety of life shutting down, got back into running and lost those 15 pounds fairly quickly. Especially now that we’ve experienced this word-wide catastrophe together, I’m 100% positive I’ll never gain the weight back.

So what did happen? I got lost. I went into survival mode and fell into some old emotional habits that I haven’t been privy too for a long time. Being an extrovert in a closed down world wore on me daily. My job was highly impacted and my career has forever changed due to the pandemic. I had to make quick adjustments often weekly for the new restrictions or mandates. I worked in parking lots, basketball courts, tennis courts, parks, pools, basements, almost anywhere you can imagine, often in the same day, just to pay bills. Even after things calmed down and life went back to “normal”, I struggled to get back to some of the things I truly loved. I had been out of the routine for so long, finding time again felt impossible.

But it wasn’t just about finding the time; it was about finding the emotional capacity. Writing on this blog for me is like therapy. It helps me see my errors and truths. It helps me understand my own view of things to have to put it in words. And that was something I just did not want to do. I had no emotional bandwith, because I was being sucked dry by my own bad habits. I may not have fallen off the wagon with my eating or fitness, but those other two pieces of self care and wellness that create change? Those got run over by the wagon.

The daily grief and fear of the pandemic lead me to a lot of old habits such as people pleasing, stretching myself too thin for others, poor self talk, ignoring red flags, feeling helpless and never being enough. It made me vulnerable to issues I thought I had long fixed. As I gained the weight, it made me feel inadequate at my job and like a phony. If I couldn’t even keep it together, how could I be a coach for others? As I lost my running, which is a huge source of confidence for me, I lost relationships with my coach and running friends because I was embarrassed.

When the pandemic ‘ended’ here in Denver, I wanted to just *poof* back into my old life, but it took a lot more work than I thought it would. First I focused on work and getting myself back up to a livable pre-pandemic wage and then I worked on my running. I still remember telling a loved one how afraid I was to attempt a 5K because it had been so long. This time, as I rebuilt my running, I was able to fall in love with running in a whole new way again. I was quickly back to running 30-35 miles per week. Then I focused on getting back into therapy and getting through some of the bad habits I’ve fallen into. Because I’d gotten back my old confidence and fitness level, I decided to switch jobs. I felt undervalued for my skill set and knew I’d be a better fit in a boutique gym that aligns with my personal philosophy. I now work for my running coach, whom I’d lost connection with over COVID. It was very healing to feel like my skills and confidence in what I do gave me the strength to step out and take a risk. After a little more life clean up and clearing of a toxic relationship, I am feeling like my old 2019 self again, with a few battle scars.

In the past two months I have been approached by so many people that are just coming out of their pandemic haze/depression/confusion/grief. We all have guilt and shame about letting ourselves go in one way or another these past few years. I guess the point of today’s post is to say, I’m not proud of how I got through it, but at least I did. This was an unprecedented time and holding yourself prisoner for your reaction is only limiting the time until you too can greet your 2019 self again. If you needed a sign to start making some changes, I hope my account of my mishaps helps. It’s ok to choose you, and move on now.

I have cried nearly everyday of this quarantine. I am not adjusting well. I have texted a lot of people needing contact. I struggle with silence and being alone. I go stir crazy after just a few hours. I don’t know how to live day to day. I’m not cut out for quarantine. And that’s ok.

I’m starting to learn to fill my days. I’m passing the time doing things I love like running, filming workouts, journaling, reading and watching movies I’ve never seen. But in the back of my mind I’m worrying. I’m not sure if I’ll have a job in two weeks. I’m not sure what life will look like in two weeks, next week or even tomorrow sometimes. The daily structure of our lives in constantly changing.

And all of it, is triggering my anxiety. The mass hysteria, the hoarding, the constant news deaths and stream of fears is too much for me. It bubbles up quickly and suddenly I’m crying in Safeway because I truly can’t stand to drive to another store for toilet paper. But I don’t have a choice. Even though we can’t touch each other and remain 6 feet apart, I can feel everyone’s worry and panic like it’s my own.

On a usual day when my demons are this loud I have a few tricks. Most of them involve people, outdoors or events. We can’t do any of that now. Nothing cures my anxiety and helps reset me like a loud dance floor and a sea of people. My favorite place to take my demons for a walk is my coffee shop. There I can observe people from my own world. I can hear conversations and Elvis playing over the speaker. It feeds me. It resets me. Not being able to do my normal tricks, is starting to give voice to demons that had been silenced.

My good friends understand how much I need contact. On day two of quarantine, I contacted 3-4 friends and warned them how needy I was about to be. I said I’d need to hear from them everyday and needed them present in my life. Without hesitation, each one of them stepped up. I know what I need from my friend and loved ones, but I’m just starting to learn to ask for it. I just learned that it’s ok to even ask.

I’m not worried I’ll gain weight during quarantine. I’m not worried that I’ll lose my shameless attitude. I am worried my anxiety will continue to increase if I don’t find more ways to calm the uncertainty of the future.

Check in on your extroverted friends. Check in on your friends with anxiety issues. We’re not ok. We don’t know how to do this. I’m scared about the coming weeks and hope my coping skills can keep up but I expect the tears to keep on coming. I know that I am strong and capable of handling what comes. I’ve show my ability to adapt and overcome is higher than most. And when I forget next week, I’ll have this post I’ve written to all of you to remind me.

While winter still rears its ugly head around here, I’m stuck to the indoor treadmill more times than I’d like. That’s right. The dreadmill. This is because I’m a huge sissy and refuse to run outside when there’s a millimeter of ice. I’m clumsy enough on solid ground, walking slowly and not trying to make a certain pace. So I listen/watch a lot of things. Podcasts. Movies. Comedy Specials. The Bachelor. During my 8 mile run earlier this week, I watched Brittany Runs a Marathon on Prime Video. (No Amazon didn’t pay me to plug their movie platform but…ya know…if they wanted to, I’d say yes 🙂 ) I’ve had this on my watch list for months and movies are not something I typically make time for in my schedule. It’s hard for me to sit around for 2 hours doing any single thing, especially ‘nothing’ like staring at a screen. If you know me, you know this to be true.

Quick synopsis: A fat girl trains to run the NYC marathon. SHOCKER: it’s not really about running a marathon. Much like this blog has turned out not to be so much about how to lose weight, but what the losing weight did for me. She starts the movie at the doctor where she hears that she’s 45-55 pounds overweight and her BMI is too high. How many times did I hear that? But…..mine was more like 145-155 lbs. At that weight, even your doctor stops warning you about what’s going to happen if you don’t lose the weight. Everyone starts to assume that you know how fat you are and how big of a problem it is. How could I not know?

Anyway, Brittany decides that she’s going to run the NYC marathon because running is free and she can’t afford a gym. “Running is free” is a huge myth. If you are a proper runner or even a beginning runner, proper shoes, simple safety gear and some clothing are going to be a must. Although it’s cheap, it’s not free. Also, paying for a marathon is not free. Even when you’re running for a charity, I find there’s usually some sort of cost involved.

This movie was by far, hands down, one of the best to depict what it’s like to lose weight, but keep your demons. Throughout the movie, she has flashbacks of herself in the same space, but in her old body, feeling like she used to feel. I remember that feeling exactly. I still have it every once in a great while. You realize suddenly, you feel no different than you ever did. Even though the weight is gone, the fat girl isn’t. Let me tell you. That bitch is resilient. I should know, I kept all the best parts of her to drive me away from who I used to be. The further I get from that person, the more I realize the weight wasn’t physical, it was a feeling. Sometimes that feeling just creeps upon you from the shadows.

I won’t ruin the end of the movie for you but she kinda makes it and kinda doesn’t. Along the way though, she too figures out that so little of losing weight is about diet and exercise, the mind is the real trick to letting the weight go. Fact: losing weight is science and math. Fact: Your brain can still stand in the way of science and math. Something that people say about losing weight is you have to find your “why”. My why changed over my journey constantly and helped me meet short term goals. What was more important to me was “why” I had been morbidly obese to begin with. That “why” has been way harder than losing 160 pounds. Discovering that “why” has been harder than any race I’ve ever run. Healing my “why” might not happen for some time.

When Dan asked me in November if we could run the Colfax Marathon this year, I was instantly terrified. But since November, I’ve changed so much. My body could have physically run a marathon at any point over the last few years. My mind could have done it maybe last year. But my spirit? My inner voice? Without the weight of my demons, I’m ready to cross that start line. Maybe over the next 10 weeks, I’ll be able to envision crossing the finish line too.

My therapist recently told me, you have to hear 10-15 positive statements about yourself to overwrite just 1 negative comment you heard or thought about yourself. At this rate, I think I’ll be forever in debt to my negative balance. Sometimes I wonder how long it will take me to heal from my weight issues that turned into so many other issues I’m no longer sure what to call them. I spent decades in that old body……. how many decades till my bank is in the positive?

As a morbidly obese person, there was plenty of things to talk to myself negatively about. I found very few reasons to love myself or ask anyone else too. I wore my weight like a barrier to keep others away so I could control my world. I wore my weight like a space blanket trying to heal myself from trauma I didn’t understand. I wore my weight with a beautiful but painful smile. As I think about the language I used with myself, I keep hearing a phrase: “If I could just….” If I could just lose weight. If I could just be a better wife. If I could just learn to be confident. If I could just break the habits I’ve had my whole life. If I could just……be a different person.

This language, straight up, comes from my childhood. I was a bit of a problem child. I know, shocking. There’s teachers of mine that might read this blog and be shocked because I was an excellent student. I was polite and considerate. I was always mildly popular and outgoing. But at home, things were a lot different. As a baby, I’m told I was very low maintenance and rarely cried. As a child I showed only the usual behaviors and petty Barbie fights with my sister. Then something changed and I started to become more defiant. I would choose random acts of refusal to do things regardless of the punishment. It took me years to change my behaviors and they were later labeled cries for attention. Now when I look back, I just funneled those behaviors into other relationships that weren’t at home. I learned to get attention from men and friends in all the wrong ways. I put stock into relationships that meant nothing and got my heart broken over and over by anyone I asked to care for it.

Throughout these difficult years as a kid, I remember hearing “Why can’t you just behave?” A LOT. Maybe they said it one time or 5 times or 5,000 times but I heard it. I kept it. And it became my inner language.

I, in no way mean to blame my parents for my inner monologue. What I’m trying to say is, when I heard that, it made me feel like I was wrong, broken, messed up. So now, whenever I feel broken, I use that language with myself. Why can’t I just……. like everyone else? I used to think I was too broken to be a good wife, a good daughter, a good friend or even a beautiful person. I’m learning now that sometimes, I just can’t. There are some things that I just can’t be. There are some things I wasn’t meant to be and choose not to be. My weight represented all the things I was meant to be but couldn’t let go. It represented all the things that “If I could just….”.

Over the past year I’ve slowly changed my inner monologue to “I can” and “I will”. People know me now for my tenacity instead of procrastination. People see my success and not defiance. I carry confidence with me everywhere I go now instead of feeling broken. Instead of feeling like I’ll never be enough of anything, I feel complete.

I keep mentioning in my blog that I knew I could love Dan better. And on today, the day of luuuuuuvvv, I had a flashback as to why. I was actually sitting around thinking about why I love Dan and that I’m so damn lucky. I was thinking about all the different ways Dan has loved me, shows me love and how many times he had to adjust that love over the last five years.

Everywhere Dan turns, I’m surprising him with something new. There’s always a new race I want to run, a new place I want to go, a new way I want to grow, a new demon from my past……regardless Dan chooses to love me. I’m one lucky girl. There was a long time in our marriage that I didn’t love Dan very well. I didn’t know how to love myself at all at first. Slowly I grew in confidence in my ability to adult myself and my love for Dan grew. My ability to communicate through his language of love became easier. But then…..it never really grew. We got more comfortable. We were and remain best friends. We still went on dates. We still had sex. We still want to spend all of our time together. We looked like the normal happy couple on the outside but we were just stuck.

I lost weight and that sparked things for a while. Now I think I was just putting all my energy into other things for a while. As I learned to love myself a little more, again, I learned to love Dan a little more. Love became easier. And then it got stuck.

I remember standing in the kitchen talking with Dan. We really were talking, not yelling, not arguing, just talking. We both agreed that we felt unloved by the other person as much as we should . We both agreed there was a problem. We both had no freaking idea what was wrong. I said “I feel like I’m loving you as much as I know how to do.” What he said I don’t think I’ll ever forget. “I know.” He said. “I think this is as much as you can love. I know I’ll always love you more and I’m ok with that.” I was speechless and I knew he was absolutely right. This was as much as I knew how to love. I was doing the best that I knew how to do. I was scared it wouldn’t be enough. I knew he deserved more.

Dan has loved me whole heartedly and fully since day 21. I know because he told me so. I still remember, 16 years later, where I was standing when I heard him say it for the first time. I’ve already written a lot about how our love and sex has changed over time but when it comes down to it, Dan has always loved me better than I have him and I think I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to catch up. It took me longer to understand love. It took me longer to accept myself as I am and be strong enough to ask someone else to accept me too.

I don’t know how many times I can say this but, if you don’t love yourself, you’re not loving the people around you. They can tell. Dan didn’t mean to call me out in that conversation last year, but he did. He said exactly what I needed to hear. I’m pretty sure my eventual response was, “I think I’m kinda fucked up.” Since then, a year ago, I’ve healed so much. I healed old scars, and added some new ones both physically and emotionally. I think 2019 might have been the hardest year of my life. But in the end, I turned out so much better.

Valentines Day 2020, I know I’m loving Dan better than ever. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to love Dan as much as he loves me but now I’m trying everyday. He loves me so freely that it makes me jealous. But I’m learning. Everything I learn and heal about myself makes me love myself more. Dan is teaching me the same lesson that he has for the last 16 years: that love can be unconditional.

You deserve to love yourself so damn much that love just pours out of you and to those around you. You deserve to silence your demons and hear the song in your heart. Everyone around you that’s trying to love you, deserves it too.

Today marks 12 weeks since I entered the outpatient surgical unit to have 3 pounds of skin removed. I can’t believe I ever got to this place and in this body. While I’m so excited to be done with my recovery, I’ve realized it made me done with a whole lot of things.

Women in general are taught to feel shame. We aren’t supposed to ask for what we want, let alone be too determined to go after it. We’re often told we are silly and unimportant. We aren’t supposed to like sex but are supposed to be sexual. We aren’t supposed to be confident about our bodies because then we are a slut or a cocky bitch. We’re supposed to want desperately to be a mother and not question a different path. Well….I’m done with all that too.

Six years ago, when I weighed 300 lbs I felt shame everyday about the life I really wanted. I didn’t really know how to get it and wasn’t supposed to have it. I felt the shame every single day from whenever age you understand it (4? 5?) until now. I still feel myself batting away the feeling when it comes into my peripheral vision. I didn’t set goals because I was often told I wouldn’t accomplish them. I hated my body and never really wanted anyone to see it. I never felt sexy in clothes or out of them really. I went back and forth on ever wanting kids my whole life. I knew I’d be a great mom, but did I want to be? Were those the same thing? Just a few examples…..

Over my journey of weight loss, I slowly shed my shame and found myself. I learned to set goals and meet them no matter what. That meant putting myself first above all else. It taught me to respect my time and how I prioritize what’s important to me. I learned to love my body because of what it could do for me and where it could take me. Slowly my body brought me pride because I’d accomplished goals of all kinds. Once I had met goals, I realized being a mother wasn’t one of them. These smaller steps towards no shame made it easier to take the bigger steps.

I’ve suffered some real traumas in my life. I’ve tried to forget and ignore it. Even 2 years ago I would have never admitted the trauma had anything to do with my weight problem. It definitely hadn’t changed me or shaped who I’d become. But actually it had everything to do with who I’d become. It was the reason I had felt shame my whole life; the reason I felt asleep in an awake world; the reason my anxiety screamed even in the silence; the reason I’d given up really caring if I’d lived. And now I’m done.

Now I love my body. I worked for everything you see and everything you don’t. I feel zero shame about my body or my life because it’s the life I built. I got the body I wanted. I got the surgery I wanted. I have the job I wanted. All of this resulted in a life I absolutely love living. And through it all, I get the man I’ve always wanted.

I didn’t know when I stepped on the scale and lost my first pound that I was healing from trauma. I didn’t know when I bought my first pair for size 12 pants either. I didn’t feel ashamed crossing the finish line of my first race. I didn’t know I was feeling shame when I hit my goal weight. I thought I was done changing six months ago. I guess what I’m trying to say is, I know it’s easy to tell when you’re 300 pounds that somethings not right. Getting to the real reason of why things aren’t right is a lot. One day I decided I was done. Another day I decided I was done being over weight. And another I decided I was done pushing people away. Then later I decided I was done pretending to love people when I could do it so much better. Just recently I decided I was done being ashamed of who I am. It’s ok to look at your life and decide you’re done. It’s time to do something about it.

I am in my final days of recovery. I honestly can’t believe it. Some days I can’t believe any of it. Somedays, I still dream (nightmare?) that I’m in my old body, my old life. Now that I’m in this life and this body, there’s no way I’d ever go back. I don’t worry that I’ll gain the weight back. I don’t worry that our lives will slowly go back to the way they were before. But I do worry that this has all been a dream.

Have you ever gotten exactly what you wanted? Have you ever thought you’d just go for it and made it? Have you ever dreamed of a different life and then woke up in it? I know I worked everyday for this. I made hard choices over and over again to get here. I was there for every skipped hamburger bun and every mile run. I was there when I left plus size clothes forever. I was there when I switched careers and started a whole different path. I was there as my husband kept learning to relove me over and over. I made all those choices. I did this. And yet…..it’s all a dream.

I’ve spent 30-34 years of my life (depending on what issue we are talking about…..) wanting to be different. I wished I could figure out how to love myself, to love other people. I thought if I could fix myself, love would be easier. I used to always feel unloved and empty. I don’t remember many emotions for a lot of years. I felt some happiness, some sadness but small bouts of each. There had to be more. This couldn’t be the life that people talk about. Is this what it’s like for everyone? It can’t be. Am I the only one asleep while everyone else is awake?

Being overweight was only one of the things I didn’t like about myself. It’s the easiest to identify and find commonality in. Eating disorders (of which I’ve had all types) are highly accessible and visible. They’re also changeable. However, there are large parts of who I am that aren’t changeable, parts that I was taught are wrong. How do you learn to love yourself when you were taught to hate yourself? I guess the answer is develop an eating disorder and figure it out 20 years later? Wow. That hurt.

When it comes down to it, this is a love story. Not a weight loss story. This is my journey to self love and how it’s brought me the best days of my life. The more I love myself, the more I love my life. People have been coming into my life lately that really feed my soul. Sometimes you just meet people and know they serve a purpose to your life. Your soul sisters and brothers. I’m slowly piecing my life into what I want now and what it should have been all along. People say to me all the time now “I’m not sure what it is about you…”

I know what it is.

I’ve let go of my shame. Someone recently said to me “You know guilt and shame are two different emotions right?” That took me a few days to process. I’ve felt so much shame in my life. Shame that I couldn’t be a better daughter. Shame that I was overweight. Shame that I wasn’t a good wife or lover. Shame that I didn’t follow the path laid out by my parent’s expectations. Shame about not wanting to be a mother. The list is pretty long and probably could have gone on forever. Some of these were fixable and some weren’t. I can’t keep feeling shame for things I can’t change. So I’ve decided to just let it go.

Since letting go, I’m weightless. People notice. People are drawn to my confidence and comfort. People talk to me everywhere I go and I make new friends all the time. A few years ago I struggled to keep just a few friends. Life is easier. Love is easier. Everyone says I look different. It isn’t the surgery that changed my smile, it’s the love.

I feel an entire spectrum of emotions now instead of being confined to just a few. I feel very little of my anxiety motor running. Maybe anxiety is shame called by a different name? That’s a post for another day……. I know this is a weight loss blog but the weight didn’t really change me. The surgery didn’t really change me. Love did.

There are some words that you just don’t say because they are painful to hear. I’m not talking about swear words. There are words that have power like: love, God, breathe, good and evil. Words that have power invoke a feeling, a memory. Then there are heavy words, words that you almost stop yourself from saying. Heavy words bear down on the back of your throat not only in the consonants they tend to carry but in the taste they leave behind. They are usually extreme circumstances or rarities. When you say these words you hope they don’t invoke a feeling or memory. You hope you go your entire life without hearing them, understanding them or worse: experiencing them.

Fat. Hate. Rape. Assault. Abuse. Suicide. Did you have a guttural response to any of those words? Did they hurt to read? To hear in your minds voice? If they have happened to you, then they probably did. How many of those on that list do you think apply to me? How many apply to you?

As I read the words back, fat doesn’t seem as severe as the others, but it’s a word I use all the time. Its makes people visibly uncomfortable. I, of course, only use it in context for myself. My old self. When I do, people want to correct me. They want to soften the blow of what it really was and what I really looked like. I lived in that body and I knew it best. I was fat. No matter what you call it, I still was. I’ve heard it all: But you have such pretty eyes, but it’s really about the personality, but………… It doesn’t matter.

Calling something by a different name, doesn’t change what it is. Sugar coating and denial isn’t helping anyone. It hurt to refer to myself as fat for a long time. Then eventually, the word lost a lot of its weight for me. (Pun not actually intended this time.) It became lighter to say and to hear. Now, I’m surprised by other people’s sensitivity to the word because it is normal to my world. Then the other day I heard a word that broke my world.

I’ve not really understood most of the reasons for being fat until this last six months. I still think there were multiple layers for me but one of my biggest blankets has been mislabeled for a long time. Sometimes you think what happened to you is normal because you’ve never asked anyone. Sometimes you think it’s happened to everyone. Not knowing its name didn’t change its effect on me. Not calling it what it was didn’t make it ok. I turned out pretty screwed up just the same. It scarred me; regardless of its name.

While chatting with a newer friend recently, she said one of those words. And she meant it about me. And she meant it about what I just told her. **I do mean to be intentionally vague. There will always be parts of my story that aren’t public for everyone. It just has to be that way.**

I didn’t hear what she said for a long time after that . I just kept hearing the word over and over. Then I ran checklist. What do I know about trauma victims; people that have experienced rape, assault and/or abuse? High level of anxiety, ‘walking on eggshells’ feeling, love hard and fast, tendencies toward worry and guilt…….oh shit.

The word hurt. To realize it described me hurt worse. It hasn’t really stopped hurting since that day. She said it so freely, I knew she’d experienced it too. Takes one to know one I guess. I’m hoping the more I understand the word and how it’s effected who I am, the less weight it will carry. The less weight it carries, the less it will hopefully bear down its weight on me.

I think this has been a missing piece of my puzzle for a long time. Truly understanding my past is changing my future. Things about my personality that I’ve been trying to rewrite are now making sense. Parts of myself that I’ve been trying to fix now seem fixable.

If you are on a journey, any kind of journey, you gotta dig deep. You have to get to that bottom and figure. it. out. There’s things you’re avoiding. There’s words you don’t want to remember. There’s times that changed you, molded you to where you are now. Find it. Fix it. Heal.