The Journey to Finding Me

My original blog, Fasting for A Change, focused on my journey to loss weight and gain a healthy life. In  Savoring Life I’m going to continue to talk about what it was like to be considered morbidly obese in a weight-conscious world and the ebbs and flows of the process I went through to uncover a body underneath all the layers that finally feels right-sized for me.

As someone who spent the first 40 plus years of my life in a body that was too big for me I always found hope and connection in reading the stories of other people who had “been there and done that.” I hope I can now offer the same to you.

Here’s an overall sketch of my story that I’ll be rounding out in future blog posts.

Childhood

With child obesity becoming an increasing problem in our country, had I been born ten years ago rather than fifty I would have fallen within the average weight range in my elementary years but apparently i was born before my time. As it was, I spent the better part of every summer wishing that when the new school year began there would be just one student bigger than me. Never happened. I don’t know what my numbers on the scale were during these early years. I only know that every time I went to the doctor’s office for any reason ranging from a sore-throat to a scraped knee my weight would eventually become the topic of conversation and by sixth grade I had tried and failed at Weight Watchers for the first time, gaining two pounds in my first week, a natural consequence I’ve since learned of sneaking handfuls of salt water taffy into my room for seven nights in a row.

High School and College

I entered high school weighing approximately 160 pounds and weighed over 210 pounds when I went on to college. Those were probably the hardest years of my life between the peer pressure to be thin, the taunting of classmates, and the lack of larger-sized clothing. If you want to understand humiliation ask an overweight teenager how it feels to sneak into the maturity store at the mall to buy a pair of pants.

My Twenties and Thirties

My weight steadily increased over the years with my average weight topping out between 250-275 pounds. There was never a time during all these years that I wasn’t on a diet, looking for a new diet, or getting ready to go on a new diet, and by getting ready I mean eating massive last meals in anticipation of the next diet I was going to start tomorrow or next Monday or the first of next month.

The Beginning of the Beginning

.(Photo taken in the fall of 1998. Weight unknown). In 1999 at the age of 42 I reached my top weight of 325 pounds. Let me be clear. I don’t have any health conditions that caused me to carry excessive weight and while obesity seems to be genetic in my family, the primary reason for my size was that I ate food and I ate a lot of it and I ate all the time.  I ate for comfort and for pleasure. I ate when I was sad or mad or not sure how I felt. I ate when I was bored. I ate when I was busy. I ate when I was lonely. I ate when I was out with friends. What I’m saying here is that I arrived at 325 pounds because I liked to eat and because it was the solution to every situation and problem. It helped me cope with life even while it was robbing me of life.

Maybe other people can be in peak physical and emotional condition at 325 pounds but I wasn’t one of them. Walking one block left me out of breath. A flight of stairs might as well have been Mt. Everest. I had sharp pains that would occasionally shoot through my chest. There were times my back pain was so severe that I’d have to crawl through the house on my hands and knees. I had sleep apnea and I feared dying of a stroke or heart attack in the middle of the night and being found in bed with a nightstand full of candy wrappers and ice cream bar sticks.

Emotionally I was in no better shape. I had tried every diet imaginable and a few of my own invention. Nutrisystems, Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig, and the Diet Center. Doctor prescribed diet pills. I had a personal dietician. I bought every new diet book. I tried every diet promised in a magazine. I lost weight with every diet but could never stay on any of them for more than a short time and each would end up with the lost weight coming back with more pounds following on their heels.

On May 8, 1999 I reached my bottom when I realized there was no limit to how much I would one day weigh if I continued doing what I was doing. That was the same day I began attending Overeater’s Anonymous having little hope initially that this time would be any different than all the other times I’d tried before. But Overeater’s Anonymous didn’t offer me a diet. They suggested a new way of living based on the 12 steps of recovery. Since my way to lose weight had never worked, since doing it on my own had gotten me no where but deeper in a hole of self-loathing, I became willing to follow their suggestions and within 15 months I lost nearly 135 pounds.

1999-2008

During these years I continued to attend OA meetings and work the 12-steps of recovery but I stopped losing weight because I was eating just enough to maintain a 190 pound body weight but not enough to shed anymore. I’d weigh and measure my three meals a day for a few days or even weeks but then the portions would mysteriously become a little bigger and snacks would suddenly make their appearance in between meals. I continued to avoid the white foods (sugar, flour, potatoes, rice) that I’d given up when first beginning OA but even too much of the good things (fruit, vegetables, and protein) prevented my body from releasing anymore weight and at times causing me to gain weight with the scales fluctuating between 190-210 pounds.

Despite still being obese according to every weight chart on earth, there’s no question I was healthier. The sleep apnea, the mysterious sharp pains in my chest, and the debilitating lower back pain was gone. I went to the gym three times a week and got involved in race-walking and long-distance walking. I trained for and completed the Napa to Sonoma Half-Marathon and the Big Sur 9-miler and I breathed easier after walking briskly for five miles than I had once done after climbing a single flight of stairs. I had said goodbye to Lane Bryant and Queen-size pantyhose and was wearing size 16 jeans, a size I could never have imagined when I weighed 325 pounds and was buying 4XL men’s shirts and wearing mail-order jeans in size 30-32.

And from 2000 to 2008 those changes in my life were more than enough to fill my life with gratitude but still I knew I wasn’t where I wanted to be and where I knew I needed to be to enter the second half of my life with the best chance for sustaining a healthy, active life in the coming years. I had also grown so discouraged in failing to lose the last of the excess weight that I had lost my motivation and was getting sloppier with my food that was leading to a slow but gradual weight gain. I knew I needed to do something and that I needed to have success in doing it. The steps and principles of 12 step recovery will always be central to my way of living and coping but three meals a day with nothing in between was no longer working for me. Let me be clear. The program of OA didn’t stop working. I stopped working the program and became unwilling or unable to do what I had done in the beginning.

Because I knew how to eat to lose weight and had more or less stayed within a twenty pound weight range for nearly eight years I made the decision to do something that would drop the remaining weight quickly so I could just get where I wanted to be and then learn how to live there. I made the decision to go on a liquid fast.

January 2009

(Photo taken January 2009 at 217 pounds with Allie Vincent from the Biggest Loser.)

In the early 80’s I participated in a medically-supervised liquid fasting program called “Optifast.” While the weight dropped quickly, I was miserable. It was more than about being hungry. I felt sick, weak, and tired all the time. Standing up made me light-headed, my breathe smelled like old sneakers a skunk had sprayed in, my hair fell out in patches and suffice it to say, I was more than a little grumpy much of the time.

When D began a liquid fast at the end of 2008 to lose some excess pounds that she’d regained I couldn’t help but notice the results she was getting and how energetic she seemed. I did some research on the liquid fasting program she was participating in and saw that it was developed more than 20 years earlier by a local doctor who wanted to help his diabetic patients lose weight quickly and safely. This led him to develop a protein supplement shake that provided an adequate amount of protein along with meeting all the daily requirements for vitamins and minerals. After checking out the program a little more and completing the required medical exam and lab tests, I decided to begin the fast. My start date was January 6, 2009 with a starting weight of 217; my highest weight since my original weight loss due most likely to my sloppiest holiday season with the food in years.

July 2009

I was on the full liquid fast for six months and my weight went from 217 to 170. My weight loss came slower than it does for most which didn’t surprise me since over the years I’d gone through long periods where I was exercising while averaging a daily intake of 1500-1600 calories and my weight wouldn’t budge. Several doctors at the hospital where the fast was supervised explained that some people have a body type that’s set for survival. In other words he tried to console me with my slow weight loss by assuring me that should I ever be stranded on a desert island with a boat load of people, I’d be among the last of the survivors. How comforting to know.

Anyway, throughout the entire six months I felt great. I continued working out three times a week with my personal trainer, doing cardio on the other days and keeping up with my regular daily routine. I developed a new interest in biking and hiking and pushed myself physically doing both. I was seldom dizzy, lost only an insignificant amount of hair, and as long as I scraped my tongue regularly my breathe killed or harmed no one.

I was happy with the weight loss I did achieve. My BMI was within a healthy range, I was no longer categorized as “obese” for my age and height and was wearing women’s large in tops and size 12 in pants comfortably. I had always said if I could fit into a size 12 I’d be content.

But I wasn’t. I still struggled with my body. Not the body that everyone saw when my clothes were on but the one I saw sans clothing in front of the bedroom mirror. Years of morbid obesity had left with flaps of excess skin. I had a Costco sized muffin top around my midriff and a sagging “apron” on my stomach. My inner thighs had folds of hanging skin and no matter how much weight I pressed at the gym, the flaps under my arms would always be bigger than the muscles on top of my arms.  I always knew that should I ever reach a normal weight I’d have reconstructive surgery on my inner thighs and so it wasn’t much of a stretch to consider expanding the surgical work to include the additional areas as well.

There are a number of posts under the category “Reconstructive Surgery” that recount the work I had done as it was happening but on August 5 I had a tummy tuck and a midback lift and on September 22 I completed the process by having the excess skin removed from my upper arms and inner thighs. Between the two surgeries nearly 20 pounds in excess skin was removed and as of this writing I’m still recovering from both procedures and average between 150-155 pounds. While the surgeries were more difficult than I anticipated in terms of the level of pain I’d experience and the extended time it’s taken for me to return to my regular activity level, there were no complications and I’m more than overjoyed with the results. While body image issues are something I’ll most likely deal with on and on for the rest of my life there’s a sense that along with having the excess skin removed, some of the emotional baggage I carried as an overweight girl and woman have been removed as well and it feels good. (November 15, 2009)

Now the next part of the journey begins, maintaining a healthy weight while continuing to grow into who I am to be in this world.