I've responded to Squirmy but wanted others to know what I'd said - unfortunately, you're limited to no's of characters in a message so this might be over a few messages :
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I don’t have a secret Will-Power potion that I can bottle up and sell on. If I did, I’d be a millionaire.
The main problem with any change that we make is that we're often doing it for the wrong reason (or person). Any change that is going to last has to come from inside of you, for your own benefit, decided upon by yourself.
I remember :
millions of times being persuaded to 'diet' by my mum - persuaded was often interpreted as 'forced' in some cases - over the whole of my formative years. I realise now that it was out of love but at the time never saw it that way
standing in a pub and being lectured at by a group of ‘friends’ about my weight for an hour – apparently I was going to be dead by the time I was 25 – I’m now 35 so that prediction put egg on their faces.
getting my first job and then being given a medical to be told by the doctor that he was getting my contract changed so that if I hadn’t lost a stone in 6 weeks, I would be out.
so many other occasions where people have made comments that, although they were meant to be for my own good, I always took for words of chastisement. They were saying them to ‘belittle’ me
on other occasions, people being genuinely nasty about my weight
Your mothers defensiveness is something that is quite common in people who have weight issues. I remember being quite defensive whenever people talked to me about my weight issues. Hell, I got quite defensive even if diets were mentioned in general conversation. We put up many walls – a cocoon that protects us. I knew it was an issue for me but what concern of it was anyone elses.
Even now, I do get a bit defensive when people still judge what I eat "You can't eat that ... you're on a diet!". I'm not on a diet and never have been - I'm on a lifestyle that incorporates a weight management regime. I've never looked on what I've done as being a diet - it's not something that is a transitionary thing. It's something I HAVE to do for the rest of my life.
Another common theory is that big people are cheerful. I’ve had comments over the last couple of years that I’m “Not as happy as I used to be”. Again, it’s another thing that people use to hide behind. “I hurt so much inside but I’ll smile and put on a brave face”. We use these masks to put on a brave front to the world. In private, we can cry, or better still, in the rain where no one can see the tears.
No matter what people think, obesity is NOT just an issue of people eating too much. It is just as much about self-worth and how a person sees themselves in the world. Every one of us has something to contribute to society. It may be that they haven't found out what that is yet but it will come.
Apologies if this comes across as a rant - it's certainly not meant to be.
So what made me change?
A number of life-changing events had happened about 8 or 9 years ago, moving house, my mum dying 6 months after that, a close friend committing suicide a year later. These things, I think, made me turn a lot more to food as a comfort in a lot of ways. Don’t get me wrong, I have always been big, even as a very young child I was overweight. So I can’t blame any single event for making me the way I was. Even before those events, I would have been considered by any doctor as being a ‘heart-attack waiting to happen’.
One of the things that defines how I feel about my weight now is that I know I am the only one in control of what goes into my mouth. The problem is, I always have been – but in the past I always found other things to blame.
Posted: 25/02/2004 at 15:17
