Very recently, I had my *ahem* girl doctor appointment, which everyone knows is extremely uncomfortable. No one likes those appointments, they try to make it all nice with a pretty robe (or sometimes just the paper one) but no woman on earth actually thinks, "Yea! I get to go see the gyno!"
Anyway, so I'm already uncomfortable, and the nice lady is asking me all about my health history, who had cancer and all that in my family etc etc. Then she mentions casually, "Oh, it's been a while since you've been here, and I can see that since the last time you were here you've gained 15 lbs." Gee thanks. It's always wonderful when people point out how fat you are. Maybe I don't feel fat that day, but as soon as you say something like that, I instantly feel like a lazy blob. Of course, I workout at least twice a week at the Y, and I'm running around with 3 children so it's not like I'm sitting eating bon bons all day. I don't even sit around and blog all day (except for today)
But wait, it gets worse. As the appointment continued, uncomfortably, we discussed my 3 children and all, and suddenly as she examines my fat rolls she casually mentions, "You know you'd be a great candidate for a tummy tuck" At this point the nervous laughs kick in because frankly what do you say after someone tells you that you need a tummy tuck? Yikes.
So all this talk about how fat I am this morning begged me to take a look at myself. You see, I feel like I've always been pretty trim. I was skinny in high school, average through the preggo years, and now, I'm only about 20 pounds heavier than I was in high school and I'm wondering, am I missing the fact that maybe I AM getting fat? Am I somehow blind to the fact that maybe I'm becoming a fat person?
Not unlike most of America, I've been pretty relaxed about my dieting habits. I never dieted before kids- I didn't have to, I was healthy and trim and felt good about how I looked. Kids came, obviously I gained weight and then lost most of it months later. Now with my youngest child at age 3 I'm thinking that the baby fat excuse doesn't apply. I already feel ugly because of all these stretch marks, and I am noticing a nice little pudgy collection around the middle...
The problem for me is perhaps society. "Society" called me fat this morning. However, I've also been told, "No way! You are not fat! you don't need to diet!" But what's really going on here? Truth is, I'm afraid to tell people that I'm on a diet for a variety of reasons. One of which being that they might think, "She doesn't need to diet, what is she anorexic?" Or the other fear might be that I just might not see results. Lastly, I know that if I do diet, it only takes a week to put me right back where I'm at weight wise. You see back in January I went on a fast (you can read that here) and I wasn't trying to lose weight but I did lose about 6-7 pounds. Then after the fast was over it took me all of 3 days to gain it all back. Poo.
I can tell myself that my ideal weigh for my tiny 5'2" frame would be around 108 (what I weighed in high school) whereas right now I'm right around 130. Which is still a healthy weight mind you. So the question for me is, do I want to be hungry all the time, lose about 22 pounds and then perhaps gain it back in a month? Or do I want to maintain what I have and continue to be happy, but perhaps be obliviously unaware of the fact that I might look like a balloon or one day end up becoming a balloon?
I know post-baby I did the whole yucky slim fast thing for about a month and lost those last 5 baby pounds. Then after baby number 2 I remember doing lean cuisines and calorie counting to drop some weight. My main issue I think though is stress. When I'm stressed I gain weight, no matter if I hit the gym, no matter if I eat a salad, if I'm stressed, I can eat NOTHING in a day and workout for 3 hours and still gain about 2 pounds. However, food for me has been a GREAT stress reliever. After a hard day, I guess I could say I cope by eating, which I know can't be a good thing. However, when I eat the foods I love, and still hit the gym, I usually maintain that weight.
So what should I do? Pass off the comments as some crazy lady not knowing what she's talking about, and maintaining my gym habits and trying to eat as healthy as I can without completely depriving myself. Or should I get serious about losing 22 pounds and take drastic measures? (Such as a radical diet and exercise program) And please do not respond if you are said representative of radical weight lose programs unless you can truly be objective in your comments.
Let me know what you think, I gotta go eat some little Debbie's....
