Mooo!

I've always been overweight. Even as a cheerleader in high school, at 155-160 pounds I was the "fat" cheerleader. Because I was bigger than everyone else, I was always the go-to girl for lifting and throwing everyone else. It bothered me, but not enough to make serious moves to change it. I would diet now and then, lose ten pounds, and before long the ten would be back. The only time I was very successful at weight loss was my senior year when I started an after-school job as a telemarketer. I also happened to have a trial membership at a 24-hour fitness center, so after being hung up on and yelled at for five hours a night I'd hit the treadmill and work out my frustrations. I don't remember how much I lost, but I remember feeling really good about the fact that I not only fit into smaller jeans but also became strong enough to do a really good toe touch.

Then I went to college. I wanted to try out for the squad there, but when the coach announced in the informational meeting that she was glad all the girls there were thin because she'd just ordered new traveling sweats and they were all size medium, I knew I wasn't going to make it. So there went my daily practices and games, and instead I spent time studying and chugging down Mountain Dew. Oh, and working my work study job at the cafeteria bakery, which didn't help at all. I didn't gain the freshman fifteen. I gained the freshman forty. By the end of the first semester, none of the clothes I'd moved in with fit anymore. Still, I was just barely in the "normal people size" range, so I didn't try very hard to lose any of the weight.

Every year it seemed another five pounds snuck on. By the time I graduated I was about 210 or 220. Now and then, just like I'd always done in the past, I'd try a diet and lose ten pounds, hit a plateau, and give it up. In 2002 I did the low carb diet thing and dropped a quick 20 pounds. But again, I stalled out for a week or two and gave it up. I didn't gain it all back right away, but eventually I just stopped paying attention and there it was again.

A couple of years later I tried again, more sensibly, and did the same exact thing all over again. 20 pounds gone fairly quickly, then a couple of weeks of no loss at all, and before long my diet had gone right back to what I'd always eaten and the weight was back.

Then I opened my business in 2006, and for the last three years I've done very little in the way of taking care of myself, or even paying much attention. I stopped wearing makeup, even, because with two jobs and a zillion places to be I just didn't have the time or energy to care anymore. I've worn pretty much nothing but baggy jeans and t-shirts and hoodies, none of which are good about letting you know that you're slowly expanding.

Through all of this, though, I've recognized something very strange about myself. When I was 155 in high school, even though I knew I was technically overweight, when I looked in the mirror I didn't see a fat body. Even up until a few weeks ago when I tipped the scales at 255, what I saw in the mirror was not an obese person. I've never had that part of my brain that looks in the mirror and sees a reflection that's worse than reality. I always see better. And it's not until I see a picture of myself that I see the awful truth (and wonder if that's really what everyone sees or if the camera just caught my "bad side").

Or, I suppose, until I reach 255 pounds and stand in front of a 3-way dressing room mirror in a little black dress that just cannot cover up the reality of how much weight I've gained.

I've spent twenty years believing that I would always look like I weighed less than I really do. I've spent twenty years halfheartedly attempting to diet and never getting past the 20 pound mark. Except now I DON'T look like I weigh less than I do, and 20 pounds isn't going to cut it. But it ends now. It has to, because I know that if it doesn't I'll soon find myself at 300, and I can't even imagine letting myself get there. But I know that three years ago I couldn't imagine letting myself hit 250, and yet here I am.

This time, I'm not going to let the 20-pound curse stop me. I know it can be done, and there's no reason I can't be successful at it. It's been my own lack of real motivation that's allowed me to get off the wagon before, but this time around I finally understand how you have to feel for this to work. I'm disgusted with myself. I'm uncomfortable with how I look and how I feel. I honestly would rather give up all my favorite foods forever than look like this for the rest of my life.

It's great to feel comfortable in your body no matter how much you weigh or what you look like, but I think as a society we've gone too far with the attempts to boost the esteem of the overweight and obese. You can dissect all the reasons we overeat, but you can't argue the fact that those of us who are overweight are overweight because we eat more than our activity level will burn off. Period. It's that fucking simple. I'm fat because I eat too much and I'm not active enough. And you can tell me I'm beautiful all you want, but it doesn't negate the fact that this is not the way my body is supposed to function. My feet hurt. My knees hurt. If I drop something and I have to lean over in my chair to pick it up off the floor, I have to hold my breath. I'm pushing the weight limit of just about every piece of home fitness equipment you can buy, and when you're too heavy to even be able to safely operate the only fucking eliptical machines you can actually afford to buy, you know you need to do something.

But most of all I'm tired of being the fat girl. I'm tired of standing behind everyone in pictures so you can't see most of me, and trying to figure out the perfect way to hold my head for photos so I don't have a double chin. I hate the fact that in the picture Rob took of us with NIN at the KC show I look like a fucking cow next to Trent. One of the coolest memories of my life, and the souvenir of it shows me at my absolute fattest.

So I'm done. No food in this whole world is worth all of this.