Exploring why I'm here part 1

I can never reveal my weight. I'm so embarassed by it I can't even acknowledge it to myself.

I remember when I was a young dieter who wanted to lose 5 kilos or so (and probably didn't even need to) I was so dismissive of the really-fat people who 'let themselves go'. How could they let themselves get like that? How could they not care?

I imagined that the really-fat people were lonely, sad, unintelligent. I imagined they had nothing to really care about, so they used food to make themselves feel better.

Now I'm really-fat and I also know that I was really-stupid back then.

I'm not sad or lonely or unintelligent. Quite the opposite in fact. I'm happily married to the love of my life (LOML) and I have three utterly gorgeous children (The Tsunamis) who I love to bits and pieces.

I have a career I love and I even manage to fit in the working thing with the mummying thing without too many hassles.

I can genuinely say that I'm content and happy with my charmed and wonderful life. Which may or may not be part of the reason that I just can't get motivated to lose weight. I haven't been frightened by a health scare. Or laughed at in public. Or humiliated by broken chairs or silly people. I'm heavy, but probably not that heavy.  I don't know, how fat do you have to be to break a chair? I do know that when I was having a spa treatment the other day at the back of my mind I kept thinking "I hope the table can hold me." So that can't be good.

One way or another, I've been trying for 20 years to get down to my 'ideal' weight. Most years I've done nothing but thought about it constantly. Some years I've been successful. I've lost the same 10 kilos over and over. A whole person has been whittled away.

I've never felt the urge to embrace the fat. I respect that people all come in different shapes and sizes. I respect that some people just want to get off the food merry-go-round and accept themselves as they are. But I've never been able to do that. Fat me doesn't feel 'like me'. I don't know how I know that as it's been so long since skinny me was even in the ball park. But I just know.

And here I am. Heavier than I've ever been. Searching for the courage to stop my self-denial and really face up to the fact that I'm fat and should by all counts be miserable about it.