I remember the first time I realized I wasn’t “OK.” It was summer and we had just finished dinner. My mother sent my brother and me outside with a piece of chocolate cake wrapped in waxed paper. We walked over to the deserted neighborhood playground and sat on the swings to eat our cake. It was a beautiful California evening with fading blue skies and the sun on its way into the ocean.
My brother wandered over to a different part of the playground. I had just finished my cake and was picking at the crumbs when a boy about 13 or 14 walked up to me and said,
“That’s why you’re fat.”
And then he walked away.
Everything changed in that moment as I felt shame for the first time.
I was seven.
I sat on the swing, staring at the ground. I knew what the word fat meant. I looked at my body. I didn’t think it looked fat; I put my hands on my stomach, my thighs. I didn’t feel fat although I really didn’t know how fat felt. What I knew now was what “shame” felt like. I was just too young to know the word for it.
Until then, I thought I was just like all my friends. I ran around playing hide n’ seek, tether ball and Kick the Can. My favorite things in the world were the red stilts that someone who worked for my father made for me. I could spend hours on my stilts feeling tall and grown up, and never get off of them. Was I too fat for my stilts?
I wondered how I could stop being fat. Unfortunately, I grew up in a family where it was not a good idea to ask questions or speak unless spoken to. I didn’t have anyone to talk to about it. So, at the age of seven, I put myself on my first diet. Of course I didn’t know anything about losing weight. The only food I knew was bad was chocolate cake. I would have to watch what my mother ate to figure out what the other bad foods were.
Fast-forward over a childhood of loneliness and more shame as my weight grew: the merciless teasing, no friends, no date to the prom – or any other school function. Over the years I tried nearly every diet available but it was always the same – I would lose some weight, quit the diet and regain what I’d lost plus more.
Then, about ten years ago, our family went through a horrible tragedy. As I lay in bed crying one afternoon my husband asked me if wanted something to eat. My first thought was, “Yeah, I’d like a hot fudge sundae with extra hot fudge,” which was, and always had been, my response to any strong emotion from explosions of joy to the depths of despair. This time, though, I was shocked to hear myself say, “I don’t want anything.”
I knew this grief was not going to go away – or lessen – for a very long time and I realized that I had a choice to make. Was I going to use it as an excuse to eat whatever junk food I wanted and make my weight even worse … or could I stop trying to cover my grief with sugar, pasta and more sugar?
That day, I made a deliberate, conscious decision to experience emotional pain in a different way. I had been dieting every day since that evening on the swing set. Now I was 45 and had dieted myself to more than 275 pounds.
As time passed and the pain eased, I began to read all kinds of things about weight loss and came to the conclusion that diets just don’t work. This was a huge perspective shift for me. I had always blamed a diet’s ineffectiveness on my failures, never on the principles of the diet!
I stopped dieting, changed my lifestyle, began eating differently and started to lose the weight naturally. By naturally I mean no starvation, diet shakes, pills or supplements, no eliminating foods or food groups and no meetings. I experienced success and failure but I always got back up and used what that failure taught me to keep losing weight.
It took six years to lose 100 pounds. That was fine. Those years would have passed whether I was doing something to improve my life or not. I had plenty of time to practice dealing with temptation, having relationships with unsupportive people, and overcoming a million reasons to give up.
When I started this journey in 1999, I didn’t have a goal weight. I had weighed more than 200 pounds for so many years I couldn’t even make a guess. You can take a look at my photo above and see that I didn’t lose enough weight to become a size six. So how did I know I’d reached the right weight when I didn’t have a weight loss goal? When I finally reached the weight I was comfortable with, I was still 30 pounds overweight according to the weight chart on the doctor’s office wall.
For me, it was never about a number on the scale. It wasn’t the approval (or disapproval) of my doctor or anyone else. It was how I felt. I wasn’t self-conscious around people anymore. I felt wonderful! I felt light and energetic and sexy! Yes, me, sexy! It was my new clothes. I went from a size 26/28, 3X to a size 14/16 Large. I could shop in “normal” stores for the first time in decades. I colored my hair and grew it out. I put on makeup; before that I hardly ever wore makeup, it couldn’t hide my chubby cheeks so why bother? I wore pretty skirts and form-fitting tops. I couldn’t believe how good I felt.
I accomplished something amazing; something I never thought I could and everything I went though was more than worth it.
And the best part?
No more shame.
• • •
About Stop Dieting Forever
There are vast differences in the challenges women face between those wanting to lose 15 pounds – which isn’t easy – and those wanting to lose 80 pounds which can feel impossible. Our needs are so different! Although women with a few pounds to lose – and men – will find ideas and encouragement here, the focus of Stop Dieting Forever is on helping women who want to lose a large amount of weight.
To lose that much weight, we must stop thinking in terms of dieting until we get the pounds off and then going back to “normal.” Nothing short of a lifestyle change that takes and keeps the pounds off must become our new normal if we don’t want to gain it all back.
Depending on how much weight you have to lose, your health, metabolism and a hundred other things, it may take you years to lose the weight you want to lose. You know what? Those years are going to pass by anyway. Whether you start taking care of yourself and lose weight or you keep dieting and gain weight, those same years are going to pass by. Today you have an opportunity to make a decision that will change your life.
I hope you will allow this blog to support and encourage you as you start on your new path. I have so much to share! I’m not a doctor. I’m not a nutritionist, dietician or fitness expert. I’m just someone who started down this path ahead of you. I don’t intend to offer any medical advice. Each of you is different. Please visit your doctor before you start any weight loss program to make sure there are no underlying health issues that can make losing weight more difficult.
Please feel free to leave a comment or question on the site. I read everything that is written.
Wishing you all the best with your weight loss efforts ~
Susan L Stewart