...as in someone who lost, will lose, is hoping to lose and/or can't lose weight...
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Stuck between reality and a fat place a.k.a. thinking fat
So as you know if you've read my previous posts or the stats I provide on this blog, I lost a great deal of weight through gastric bypass surgery, more than 130 lbs to be precise. I'm very happy to say that for the first time since I can remember, I now weigh less than 200 pounds - yeah me!!! The thing is, even though my body is very different, I still think like the very fat person I was before the surgery. And let me explain what I mean. It's like most of the limitations that I had before because of my weight are now gone. I can climb stairs, run, walk fast and/or for long periods of time, fit my ass into every armchair I come accross, bend to tie my shoes, cross my legs, give myself pedicures and the list goes on and on and on and on... BUT, in my head, I'm still in a very "fat place", which means that often, I notice that I will react as if I'm still over 330 lbs, especially when faced with something that would have been challenging or even impossible because of my weight. Which made me realize the full extent of the limitations I had to live with at my highest weight. I never noticed them until they were long gone, and I'm still noticing new ones everyday. But going back to what I was saying, I feel like I'm stuck between reality and a very fat place because I haven't yet realized that I'm no longer limited by my weight. For example, when I go shopping, it took me a long time before I realized that I no longer needed to shop in the plus size section and can now fit in regular sizes from head to toe. Hey, I even have to go down from XL to L and I'm thinking probably M now when I buy tops. Can you imagine!!! Before, sizes 3XL and 24-26 were becoming too tight... What a change! But my mind is not keeping up with my body's changes. Another example would be with physical activity. My BF and I recently went to NYC for Easter week-end. I took us little to no time at all to realize that the best way to discover NY is by walking. And upon coming to this realization, I could feel the dread of having to walk long distances or for sustained periods of time overcoming me. But guess what? I had the stamina to keep up with my relatively fit and not-obese-but-slightly-overweight BF. More than that, he was the one who couldn't keep up with me!!! I outwalked him. Hey, I outwalked someone!!! Now that's a first!!! Literally. Never happened before, in my life, like ever-ever. Very awsome! But this is quite a change from before when I was basically emprisoned in my body and had to avoid a plethora of places/situations/activities in order to dodge potential humiliation. I do think that my mind is catching up slowly but it is definitely not up-to-date with my body, which means that I will still have avoidance reactions to certain things. But now, when I catch myself having this type of reaction, I can overcome my initial reaction and engage in what ever was causing me to have this knee-jerk avoidance reaction because most likely, I'll be able to do/go what was impossible less than 8 months ago.
Labels:
body,
changes,
coping,
gastric bypass,
physical exercise,
psychology,
update,
weight loss surgery
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment