Until entering politics a year and a half ago, I successfully hid my appearance from the world. Even in this age of social media, it isn't hard to do. Just substitute a "vintage" picture of yourself from 20+ years ago instead of posting a current image, and guard your "privacy settings" religiously to avoid being tagged in anyone else's photos. Also, make sure to keep your nose clean - you don't want your current driver's license photo to be posted on television and computer screens as part of a nation-wide manhunt. And don't get kidnapped for the same reasons.
If you do these things, you can control how people remember you - people you haven't seen for decades. This is the best way to preserve in their memory the skinny you, or the skinnier you. Also the younger you. And it won't shatter their illusions about what you probably look like now. This also allows you to imagine that someone somewhere remembers how you once looked.
I would like to say that I'm not ashamed of my appearance exactly, but I am, despite other successes. I would like to be comfortable in my own skin, but I am not. I am not even comfortable in my own clothes - I am especially not comfortable in my own clothes. And I want what I write here to be true. That's kind of the whole point of writing it.
I've spent most of my adult life trying to lose weight. I remember joining Weight Watchers for the first time about six months after our wedding. I've tried dozens of diets since while steadily gaining weight and almost never losing a single pound. But that isn't what this series of blog posts is going to be about. I couldn't care less about the mechanics of dieting, which is undoubtedly part of my problem.
I am not maligning any diets or diet programs. It isn't their fault - I'm sure most of them are sound and reasonable and work for some people. I've known all along the problem is me.
I am engaged in a one-person food fight. Without being overly dramatic, this is Mein Kampf. And now, for the first time, I am "coming out" about being morbidly obese. Of course that is very easy to do when your weakness is also your most obvious defining feature and when you are a very, very, very minor public figure known to just enough people to render you locally recognizable, like at the grocery store or the post office. It's like saying, "You may not have noticed, but I am fat, hugely fat. It wouldn't be polite for either one of us to mention it, but I am. Go ahead and make your judgments about that, and let me begin the process of proving your assumptions wrong."
I know this is how people think, because I am a person and I think this way, too. I see people like me at the grocery store and assume the worst about them in terms of their intellect, their living conditions, their education, their family life, and their aspirations. It's hard to admit that, when most of the people I've ever loved in my life have been fat, but I do have those biases, even though they are untrue. We probably all have them.
And I'm not going to defend being fat, or tell you there is something wonderful about it or that I am intentionally fat.
Though this is only a short blog post, over the years I've written whole, unpublished books and epic poems on the subject of my own obesity, hoping for a mental breakthrough of some sort. I've been immobilized by analysis paralysis. I've sought therapy. I've attended Overeaters Anonymous. I've tried prayer, anti-anxiety meds, tai chi, meditation, walking, biking, swimming, water aerobics, and tennis. (I haven't tried acupuncture, but it's on my list.) I've read dozens of books on the subject, searching for just the right insight that will motivate me to succeed. I've made myself checklists and kept food journals. On and on and on, ad nauseam...and it is nauseating.
I'm not saying that it is impossible for me to lose weight, because I am sure that it isn't. I'm simply trying to get some street cred here for having tried. You need to know that I have tried so that I can avoid boring you with decades of details.
And I am most emphatically not seeking sympathy. I don't want a doctor's note excusing me from gym class. I don't want anyone saying, "You poor thing! How awful for you!" Every enlarged fat cell in my body is the result of some edible enjoyment which I judged at the time to be more enticing than weight loss.
So for this first post on the subject (at this open blog) let me enumerate some of the "Reasons to Lose Weight" that I came up with this week. I have made similar, much longer lists in the past:
- To alleviate health concerns - fear of diabetes, sleep apnea, stasis dermatitis, heart disease, arthritis/joint pain, high blood pressure, stroke, edema, inflammation, cancer
- For longevity
- For increased mobility
- To give me energy and confidence for my re-election campaign next summer
- To preserve my quality of life as I get older
- To demonstrate to others that you really can do this. It's some kind of scientific phenomena, not a mystical one.
- To go horseback riding again - an activity I loved as a child and young adult that is completely out of the question now.
- To enjoy bicycling again - another favorite youthful activity.
- To enjoy downhill skiing again and teach my children to enjoy it.
- To travel with greater ease and less fear. (It's never fun to ask for a seatbelt extender or to see the reaction of fellow passengers as I approach the empty seat next to them. And it isn't fun to have to cut sight-seeing short due to fatigue.)
- To meet my grandchildren and be a memorable part of their lives.
- To be a voice for obese people, who are often marginalized or who self-marginalize.
- To take myself and my dreams more seriously.
- To gain confidence in myself, though I hope I never become that person who considers weight loss her greatest accomplishment
- To go hiking again in beautiful places
- To gain self-respect
- To have more energy. (Imagine how difficult it is to do everything I do with a 200lb. person clinging to me like a ball and chain.)
- To play tennis again without becoming winded so easily. Tennis is a sport I enjoyed in my youth and one that I could enjoy into old age if I were fit.
- To make my dream of losing weight come true.
- To rebloom, like a perennial. To be beautiful again, outside as well as inside.
- To surprise people. No one ever expects anyone to succeed at dieting, especially when they are as large as me. I am in the "lost cause" category. Pass the creme brûlée.
