Fatty

I wasn't going to write about this. 

The first time I realized that I might have an issue with my weight was when I fainted on the way home from the local pool. I was 14 and despite years of activity and a doctor who described my weight as "normal" and "healthy", I felt fat. I'd felt fat for years.

Possibly thanks to the ballet teacher who nicknamed me "Fatty".

Never mind the inappropriateness of calling a child fatty as a nickname, I wasn't even fat.

But that summer I turned 14, I was finally able to make my stomach concave. I also spent the entire day at the pool, swimming and not eating. I would faint and take a brief rest in a park on my way home, then continue on home. I never mentioned the fainting. Or the not eating all day. 

I don't remember exactly what I weighed that summer, but I know that during the next year I grew to my adult height (all of 5'2) and was dismayed to hit 100 pounds. I dabbled in making myself throw up after meals, or going all day without eating. But I knew - I'd read too many books - that if I kept that up, I'd be in big trouble. 

When I graduated 4 years later, I weighed 115 - most of it in the boob area. I was so dismayed over my perceived figure flaws that I wouldn't wear a bikini without a t-shirt over it. If I had that body today, I would wear a bikini to the grocery store, I swear to God. 

The dress was too big, because I felt that if I was bigger than my old size 2 it didn't matter what size I wore. Also, please ignore the bad hair. It was the '80's. 

I got slightly more accepting of my body in college - in that I wore clothes that fit, despite not being a size 2 - but I remember my weight and body acceptance being a constant battle. I kept exercising, but I wasn't so disciplined about food - I gained another 15 pounds. Then I gained and lost a bunch, thanks to stress and my first husband being kind of an asshole, so I was right back where I was when I had graduated from college. 

Until I got ulcerative colitis at 25. At first, I tried to enjoy the fact that I lost 30 pounds in 6 weeks. Until I realized that not only did I not look like me at that weight, having ulcerative colitis is a hellish way to lose weight. To get better, they put me on massive doses of steroids. 

Sad, depressed, lonely and with the appetite of 4 teenaged boys put together, I gained all the weight back - and then some. I was actually fat for the first time. My now-ex was not pleased. I was on steroids for something like 9 months, because my original dose was so high. I was an emotional wreck and the cracks in our tenuous marriage turned into fault lines.

After 18 months being steroid free and 3 months without my ex, the extra weight just started to fall off. I lost 30 pounds, mostly by remembering what an appropriate portion looked like. Then I started reading Geneen Roth's wonderful Breaking Free from Emotional Eating, threw out my scale and starting accepting my body. I knew I wasn't thin, but I realized that "not thin" is not the same as fat. I felt good. 

It worked really well until I got pregnant with Ironflower. Actually, that's not quite true. It worked really well until I had Lovebug. Ironflower has never been much of an eater, so nursing her didn't seem like a big deal, appetite wise. It was all about losing the weight I'd put on while I was pregnant. Which was considerable. 

Me with Ironflower. Within 15 pounds of my former weight, unknowlingly preggo with Lovebug.

Then I had Lovebug, who LOVED to nurse. The child ate all the time, so I was hungry all the time. Then my colitis flared, so I was on steroids and trying to nurse a super-eater. All concepts of portion size went out the window. And while I tried to walk with the kids every morning, I spent most of the rest of the time sitting. Two kids in 15 months, quitting my job, steroids. . . I didn't lose any baby weight that time. 

When we moved back to New Jersey, I gained even more weight. Some of it was just access to good pizza and bagels again, but some of it was just because I'd lost all sense of how to eat like the short and somewhat petite person I am. And the thought of real exercise - the kind where you really sweat? Totally overwhelming. 

I kept half-heartedly trying to diet, but I didn't know how to do it without turning into a scale-obsessed high school girl. Plus, the weight didn't drop off easily like it had in the past, even when I did manage to stick to 1000 calories a day. When HugMonkey came along, the 20 pounds of pregnancy stuff fell right off (especially since 9 of it was him), but nothing else did. Of course, he nursed like a champ, so I ate like a champ. 

When he was 18 months old, we joined the local Y and I started seriously exercising again. I barely lost any weight, but I comforted myself with the fact that at least I had stopped gaining it. Of course, I still hid from photos, hated my body, felt the need to tell new people that I hadn't always been fat, tried to avoid people I used to know, hated meeting new people, didn't want to take my kids to the pool. . .I spent so much emotional energy hating my body and my weight that I didn't have the emotional energy to make any changes.

It was so much easier to accept myself and love myself at a normal weight. I didn't see how I could accept myself while fat, but I also knew that while I hated myself, I'd stay fat. 

A rare current picture. 

I think people can be lovely no matter what their size. I think you can be fat and fit, as well as skinny and unhealthy. I believe in curves. I think caring about what size you wear is stupid (especially since clothing sizes are so random). But I also think that when a short, small-boned, woman of 42 can down 4 slices of (New Jersey-sized) pizza, she's not honoring her normal weight. . .she's eating too damn much. 

I'm not on a diet. Diets are, by definition, temporary. I don't think they work. Plus, they make me crazy - either I go all extreme and faint regularly, or I eat everything in sight in rebellion. What I am on, however, is a quest to remember how much food a woman of my size, age and activity level is supposed to eat. I'm trying to eat more protein and fiber, but I'm not trying to make myself eat kale every day. 

I hate kale. 

I've lost 8 pounds in the last month. This is the first time I've lost weight without having a baby or an operation (last summer's tonsillectomy) since I can't remember when. It feels pretty good. I'm still fat, but there's no echo of "fatty" in my head whenever I see myself.

Thanks for reading this long-ass post. Do you think I should keep blogging about this weight loss thing? I promise they won't all be so long. 

Bad Mother Chronicles, part 1087

(I wrote this a few weeks ago. Although it probably could have happened today, if we weren't having Ice-ocalypse. Which seems pretty lame compared to the Kansas City ice storm of 2002, but I'm still glad I don't have to go anywhere.)

This morning I told my kids not to touch my shit.

Seriously.

It was like I was talking to my freaky freshman year roommate and her even freakier boyfriend. They liked my make-up a lot. And that's not what made them freaky. But anyway, it's probably not appropriate to talk to your children the way you once talked to drug addicts. Although they did hide my shoes.

We were hurrying out the door to take Ironflower to school, but I have been busy preparing for a trip (note to potential thieves: we're having a housesitter. With a Rottweiler.)  and trying to complete a million tasks and Hugmonkey has a cold. So I'm a little stressed. I run to the top of the stairs, where I KNOW I left my shoes and they are not there. Since it always takes 10 minutes longer than I expect to get all the children ready for the cold, we are always in a hurry. But if you think I'm leaving my house without my warm shoes when it's 20 degrees outside, you don't know how deeply I've chosen comfort over cuteness.

I would make Tim Gunn cry.

So, I wanted my ugly, warm, snow resistant Merrells. But they were not where I had left them. Nor were they nearby as if they had been kicked aside casually during one of the new games that involve running and screaming. They were not in my room. They were not by the door.

I called to the squabbling children (twice) and asked them if they had seen my shoes. I should have known something was up when they came upstairs to "help" me look. To them, looking for something usually amounts to a quick glance around the room. But this time they actually looked in several rooms. I began to get suspicious.

Finally they admitted to playing with my shoes.

And not remembering where they left them.

"What on earth were you even playing with my shoes for? Were you playing dress up?" I asked. Did I mention that these are ugly but functional Merrells? I mean, they're not typical dress up attire. Unless you're pretending to be hippies of questionable sexuality or something. But it seems my children, even though we have provided them with enough toys to open a small toy store, thought tossing my shoes around would be fun.

"Please leave my shoes alone," I said politely. They nodded. Then I went to find my purse. Which had been opened. By someone with sticky hands.

"If you want something from Mommy's purse, please ask. It's private," I explained. They nodded. Then I went to find my hat. Which was missing. Each child blamed another child. I gave up on it.

Last came the keys. "Don't move the keys, kids. Mommy keeps things in a certain place so she can always find them, " I may have been able to hold it together had not the oldest thought to pipe in.

"But we were playing and we needed keys and.. . ."

That's when I remembered having to go to Housing to get a new key because the roommate and her boyfriend had "borrowed" mine from my desk, without permission, and then lost it. It took about 7 hours.

"Just don't touch my shit, guys." We all stared at each other. "I mean, um, don't touch Mommy's stuff without permission, okay? It makes us late when I can't find it and it gives me flashbacks to the worst things about college." They nodded hesitantly, possibly waiting to see if would swear more.

I hung my head in shame and headed out the door.