The Baby Weight

I have struggled with my weight as long as I can remember. I struggled to lose weight, to accept my weight, to maintain my weight, and to carry my weight. The only thing that wasn’t a struggle when it came to my weight was putting it on. A slow metabolism and a love for food is a terrible combination, especially when you work a sedentary job.

When I found out I was pregnant, in the summer of 2008, I weighed 195 pounds. During my pregnancy, I gained fifty pounds, putting me at 245 the day I checked into the hospital to have my son. Just four months after he was born, I became pregnant again, and was the exact same 245 pounds the following year when I arrived at the hospital to deliver my daughter. I don’t remember exactly how much I weighed at my first checkup, but I hovered around 235 for the year or so after my daughter was born. I went all in for a short period of time, exercising, eating right, and dropped down around 210. But life got busy, I couldn’t find time to work out, easy or quick meals became a necessity, and before long, I was back around 230. I would get back on the health wagon for a time, and then fall off. If you’ve been following my blog at all, you might remember that I have always seen things in black or white, and struggled to live in the grey. Either I was working out five days a week, eating salads and soups, and avoiding sugary drinks, or I was eating to excess, with little care about what I consumed. This went on for years, and it always left me with shame (both at my weight and my lack of self-control), and a feeling of inadequacy.

We live in a society that tells us that skinny is pretty, that thin is in. But the same folks that promote skinny, are pushing sugar drinks and fast food on the next corner. I have yet to see a fast-food commercial with a fat chick sitting on the couch, alone, at midnight, eating their burger. That doesn’t sell. Reality doesn’t sell. Our culture is obsessed with fake, with filters, with cropping. My pastor says, “Jesus doesn’t want your Facebook page.” We have all learned to hold the camera little higher, crop our bellies out of our photos, add a filter that makes us look better, and offer the world our best false self…because that’s what society wants. No one wants to talk about your shame, your problems, your truth. No one has time for that. Hurry, throw on a skinny-wrap, pop a diet pill, and hope for the best.

A year ago, I stepped on the scale at the doctor’s office, and I wanted to ask the nurse to take my weight again. Yeah, you’re as surprised as I felt. Typically the weigh-in is my least favorite part of a doctor visit. Once we got to the exam room, I asked her to look up my weight from my previous appointment, and I was shocked to find that I had lost sixteen pounds. I had never unintentionally lost a pound in my life. I had been slowly making better food choices, cutting out sugar for a month, pushing my plate away when I was full, small steps to improve my health, not decisions to lose weight. I also had begun to deal with chronic pain from abdominal wall endometriosis, which suppressed my appetite. But sitting in that doctor’s office that February afternoon, I was shocked. I had spent weeks losing sixteen pounds in the past, starving myself, working out 3 or more days per week. How was it possible that making a few changes to my diet, and not working out at all resulted in the loss of sixteen pounds? I was sure that it was a fluke and I would gain it back.

Fast forward six months. It was August, it was hot, and I had not gained a single pound back. I still had not exercised, I was eating normal, and I was maintaining the weight-loss. If you have ever struggled with your weight, I know you can understand how foreign it felt to me. I had lived in a lose/gain/shame cycle for so many years that I really expected the weight would come back on just as unexpectedly as it had fallen off. At least a few of the pounds.

In early January of 2020, I stepped on the doctor’s scale, and I weighed in at 206 pounds. That meant I was down twenty pounds in fifteen months. I had made it through Thanksgiving and Christmas without gaining a pound, and had actually lost four pounds. I still had not exercised, except a bike ride here or there with my kids. Honestly, I was in too much pain to excercise most days, even if I had wanted to (and let’s be clear, I didn’t really want to). Because I am an earner by nature (or more likely as a result of my raising), I struggled to rejoice in the weight loss. I didn’t struggle to lose it, I had not walked on one treadmill, or even put on a pair of running shoes. I had not earned it, and therefore it didn’t feel like my victory.

You don’t get what you want; you get what you deserve.

Frank Sonnenberg, Soul Food:Change Your Thinking, Change Your Life

I didn’t earn it, I didn’t deserve it, and I could not celebrate it. Every time I stepped on the scale, I expected to see a higher number. Towards the end of January, I began to feel like I was losing control. I stopped pushing my plate away, I snacked when I wasn’t hungry. I felt like I was punishing myself, looking for my old pal, Shame.

I decided to repeat the experiment I had done the previous February – plant based, no sugar, no wheat for the entire month. I knew that I would lose a few pounds, and I also knew that I would feel like I had earned them. Somehow depriving myself made me feel better about the weight loss. And that made me sad. Why couldn’t I just be like normal people and rejoice in my successes? Nothing had come easy to me in life, and if it tried, I rejected it. Pride is funny like that. I wanted a break, but was always too proud to accept it when it came. I wanted to, no, I needed to earn everything that I possessed.

It’s been over a month since I went back to my (new) normal diet. I lost 7 pounds in February. 199. It has been over ten years since I have seen anything under 200 on my scale. The baby weight was finally gone, just in time to celebrate my son’s eleventh birthday. Every time I step on the scale, I expect the number to climb, and every time I am surprised to see that I have maintained. When I have eaten a piece of cake, or eaten a large meal, I just know that the scale is going to expose me for the fraud I have always felt I am. And when it doesn’t, I am forced to face the reality that I have changed. I have made small steps that have made big differences. I did it. And although I am not far enough along in my recovery from perfection, and I still struggle with grace, I have decided to celebrate my new weight.

What I have learned is that the decision to lose weight starts at the store, not in the kitchen. I had to stop buying some of my favorite things, both because they were terrible for me, and because I lacked the self-control to avoid them if they were in my cupboard. I have learned that the salad at the restaurant costs more than the burger – which seems like a waste to a poor girl who grew up on the wrong side of the tracks (even when there were no tracks, I was on the wrong side) – but it is worth the extra couple of dollars, I am worth the extra couple of dollars. I spent eleven years trying to lose thirty five pounds, but it wasn’t until I changed (ahem, until I allowed God to change) what was on the inside, that I was able to not only lose weight and keep it off, but also to celebrate the accomplishment.

I am not who I was last year, or two years ago, and certainly not the same as I was five years ago. When the Bible tells us that we can walk in newness of life, that the old man will die and we can walk in freedom and victory, it is all true. I am learning to love myself. I remember praying, asking God to allow me to see myself through His eyes, and by that I meant all of the bad in me, so I could be better. But Jesus heard what I said, and He showed me the love he feels for me, the good that is in me, as well as the things I needed to weed out. Today, I am 199 pounds, and I feel lighter than ever.