How is this possible?
In February I felt like my weight was a battle that I would never win. I was resigned to making fat jokes about myself forever. I was okay with that - some of my jokes are really, really funny and I love nothing more than catching someone off guard by being un-PC about myself. Great fun.
But, of course, nice if you don't have to, right?
Now, in May, I am 19 kilos lighter and a part of me wonders how that happened.
I've tried to lose weight many, many times over my life. Starting at about 16 when I didn't know what I weighed, what I was meant to weigh or even how to get there. All I knew was that I was 'huge' and I needed to be 'not huge'.
Huge. What a joke. I was probably under-weight at the time, not over weight.
Years and years and years passed and somewhere along the 'weigh' I guess I just gave up losing that 'five kilos' that plagued me. I could never 'stay on a diet' for longer than... oh, two days, a day, a morning. It varied, but a week was a triumph and any more than that seemed completely unachievable. Even leading up to my wedding, when I was a total gym junkie, going up to five times a week, I still continued to eat and eat and everything stayed the same. It didn't bother me enough. I was still happy in my skin and proud to be me.
Five kilos became ten. Ten kilos became fifteen and then. Then.
I stacked it on. I knew that I was eating all the wrong foods in all the wrong amounts, but something in me didn't care. I was battling a bigger demon than my weight - sleep deprivation - and the sugar and carb cravings I was experiencing had to be endured to be believed. My body was tormented by blood sugar peaks and troughs and I was tormented by my failure again and again to 'stay on a diet'. I didn't want to live like a miserable, whoa-is-me person so I just gave into the sugar and found my inner 'fat and happy' chick.
Those sugar cravings. I have given up smoking after a long and committed addiction and I felt more cravings for sugar than I ever remember feeling for nicotine. The difference, I know, was that part of me felt I deserved the sugar and the same could never be said of my relationship with nicotine. I guess I wanted to give up smoking enough.
And so it goes.
Many of us have been there.
But I'm different now. Just different. After years of feeling like all I want is a bloody good sleep, I'm suddenly awake. I'll tell you more about what's different in my next post.
Thanks for listening. Talking about this stuff is really hard for me. Mostly because I worry that I'm boring and also because I worry that by saying it out loud, I might jinx it.
[Image via flickr]
