When I lost my weight at the ago of 50, I lost everything else. My friends, my family, my money, my home, my mind. All of them were gone with the 135 pounds. Now eight years later, most of that has not come back. But I am still thin, so maybe it is all worth it.
October 5 2011 is the day I saw a picture of myself “looking normal” and declared I was done losing weight for the first time in my life. This is all I ever wanted to be. I wanted people to see me and not think how fat I was.
I was a fat four year old and almost 50 years of this was enough. All of my life I had been the fattest person in any room, and now finally I was not.
But when I did lose the weight, I became another freak. Now I was asked if I had cancer. How else could I have lost the weight? Or people in my small town whipped out their cell phones to take my photo and send it to their fat mom and tell her she could do it too.
The world had caught up to my fat self. In 2011 70% of Americans were obese or overweight. Now in 2019, that number is 80%+. I feel the pain of every one of those people. This is why I became a weight loss author and coach.
In the months after my success, all of my fat friends left since they could not stand to see me, and their husbands now thought I was “hot.” Thin women told me to get away from their husbands 20 years younger than me since I was now a “cougar.” Men were looking at my boobs instead of my eyes.
Let’s everyone forget I was the fat and smart accountant with 30 years of high level experience and no social skills. Now the guy at the bank wanted to teach me how to write a check. And I pretended to learn.
In 2012, I was hospitalized four times and had two surgeries. My health problems did not go away with my weight and some of them got worse. I started riding and falling off a bike in spectacular ways. My son with ptsd was terrified I would now die in a sports accident.
I had paper taped over the one mirror in my house. I could not look at this old lady with wrinkles that did not look like me. I liked my old fat face better than the old hag I now saw. Going out in public meant I was soon going to be running away from someone down an alley and crying.
Then in 2013, I looked at an old social media page I had and wondered who that fat lady was in the picture. It was me! I had finally turned the corner to be the new thin person I was and felt incredible relief.
But nothing came back. I was gone from my small town. I had spent most of my money on stupid things like pretty clothes I was too embarrassed to wear. I had lost all my friends. I was homeless and wandering and completely at a loss,
So I moved to SE Asia. I wonder daily what I am doing here. I’m glad to be “fat” again among all these people thinner than me. They say, “You are not thin, but you are not fat like an American” and I feel happy. I help others online with weight loss when I can. I help other minnows and redfish on STEEM when I can.
Now I really am somebody else than the person I used to be. Everyone to meet me now has to see that old photo to know I was really fat. I seem to be a thin person – that “normal” looking person I always wanted to be.
This week I am getting “Congrats!” messages in my email. This is from a site I used to help me lose weight. If they did not send me these emails each year, I would forget the date. When I passed my 5th year they told me only 5% of people make it that long without gaining the weight back. What must that number be after 8 years?
Go me, for bucking the trend. I told myself at the age of 46 when I decided to “lose weight or die trying” that this would be the one and only time I would go through it. Little did I know what I was in for, but I am certain it will not ever happen again. I’m thin no matter what may come, and who knows what that will be?
My post is for @slobberchops tag of truestories. He focuses more on Steemians that appear to be dedicated and are not powering down. I feel dedicated to STEEM and work 14-18 hours a day here now. But even though I do not eat much now, I still have to eat :)
The photos for this post were taken before and after my weight loss by me and various other people between 2005 and 2014. I do not have many photos of myself now since at 60, I look even older but still thin :)