A Framed Reality

The last time I felt okay with my weight was after my first semester in college. I was away at Mass College of Liberal Arts. I walked around everywhere because I didn’t have a car. I ate what was available in the school cafeteria, which was not much over the typical American cuisine (pizza, burgers, and pasta dishes). Since the food was available only at meal times, I didn’t overeat. I came home for Christmas weighing 115 lbs and I felt amazing. The people around me reiterated what I felt when I looked in the mirror or when I was standing in my clothes, that I looked fit and happy.

After that semester I transferred to a college closer to home and I moved in with my father to commute to school. Over the next three years I started to slowly gain weight. I didn’t walk around as much because I was driving more now. For the first time in my life I was responsible for the food that was purchased in my house. I bought junk food I used to dream of eating as a kid and when I ate out at restaurants I didn’t worry about what I was choosing for a meal. I ate and ate with no thought at all to what was going into my body. Food became the comfort I so desperately needed in the personal tough times throughout college. It was that security blanket that was always there, dependable and reliable. As my clothing sizes slowly went up, I became more depressed about the way I was looking and for what was going on in my life. These two factors started to grow entwined like ivy slowly creeping up alongside a brick house, covering up every part of the brick’s beauty. 

After college I worked a string of sedentary jobs, chained to a desk, typing on a computer and answering phones. The monotony of each work day slowly gave way to the realization that my dreams of what life would be like in my twenties were not going to materialize. The more I let those negative thoughts dominate my daily routine, the more I wanted to eat. I needed anything to make me feel better than I actually felt. 

By 2008 I weighed 180 lbs, the most I had ever weighed at that point. This was the year my life came crashing down on me. I was working in a publishing company, a dream job I had spent so many hours trying to get, that once I was living it, I realized it was not the dream I really wanted. I impulsively quit and took a job at a nursing home working as an activities assistant. For the first time in years my daily routine required me to walk around and move very fast. Needless to say my body was not used to this daily physical fast pace. I felt so awkward trying to move around and lift the 50 lbs required for the job. I had been hearing from other people about Weight Watchers and their success. A couple years ago I had tried out Curves thinking it would be the answer to my weight problem, but it never helped me lose very much at all. I became discouraged and quit. So I was worried about trying Weight Watchers. The program was a little cumbersome at first, but once I got the hang of it I noticed I started losing a bunch of weight.  I was on it for about 4 to 6 months really working it and I lost about 20 lbs, but I was not eating nutritiously. I was eating to make the daily point quota. I started to get really sick all the time. I felt lousy and was still overweight for my body’s frame. I stopped Weight Watchers and started eating whatever again. My weight slowly crept back up again to 180 lbs.

The year 2008 was not only a big change career wise, but personally as well. My eight year relationship with my high school boyfriend ended and my grandmother, whom I was really close to, passed away. Food was still my security blanket. I needed the daily fix of junk food or comfort food meals to get through each day. Let’s face it, when you eat junk food, pizza, or macaroni and cheese you are eating something that makes the neurotransmitters in your brain release high levels of serotonin. This makes your body feel happy, even if it is for a brief moment in time.

In the fall of 2009 I finally found another job up on the north shore and moved into an apartment with my sister. This was the first time I had been able to live independently without parents or a boyfriend. It felt really good. I just wish that feeling was not overshadowed by the fact that I could only think of how fat I felt. My new job was another sedentary one, chained to another desk. Back at the nursing home earlier that year I had really hurt my foot, to the point where standing a long time was really difficult. Finding another sit down job was crucial for me. 

Over the next two years I tried my best to work through my issues with food. I started reading up on nutrition, trying to understand myself as an independent person, detached from being so overly dependent on others. By 2011, I was fed up. I started to take the nutrition research seriously and started eating more healthfully. This lead to me giving up meat and I learned I really liked being a vegetarian. The more healthy meals I ate, the less junk food I consumed. This was also a time I was working through my personal issues and that link between food and depression. Food stopped being a security blanket and a mindless task, and it became a vital part of my day when I chose healthy fuel for my body. The more I consciously chose food I put in my body, the more my relationship with food changed. 

I sporadically started walking here and there around my apartment complex. I went vegan for 6 months and then back to vegetarianism after I realized I could not live without cheese. When I went back to eating cheese I decided to eat the healthy organic cheese option and I kept with the vegan products I did enjoy: soymilk, vegan margarine, and vegenaise (a soy based mayonnaise).

By Spring 2012 I had seen pictures of myself from time to time and didn’t like what I saw. I looked in the mirror and felt disgusted with the reality that was reflected back at me. I didn’t do anything about it. My exercising was sporadic at best and I was at the heaviest I had ever been, 189 lbs. I set to walking more and I managed to lose those extra 9 lbs I gained in the last year. Being back at the 180 lbs was not a successful weight loss. This is nowhere near what my weight should be to be healthy.

Last weekend my father remarried and pictures of me were posted everywhere. They were on Facebook, on external websites, and stored on computer hard drives. They would soon be locked into frames, hung up on walls to be displayed for decades. It finally hit me. I am overweight.

I can’t ignore it any longer. I am bigger than most of the people around me and I am unhappy being this big. The question has always been, when will I finally get it? I need to lose weight. I need to seriously lose 65 lbs. Healthy eating and exercise need to be part of my daily routine. It needs to be as serious as reading a book every day is for me.  It needs to become second nature, like getting out of bed and showering or making my morning cup of coffee.  I need to take responsibility for the weight I gained and for the effort it will take to lose it. 

Much to my chagrin, I decided posting it out on the blogosphere would force me to not give into the excuses that will inevitably come up. I enjoy walking and lifting weights in my apartment so I will start with this as my exercise routine. I will limit myself to two dishes a week centered on cheese. I will limit myself to one small dessert a day such as chocolate and will eat more healthy snacks such as unsalted nuts and dried fruit between meals. I will drink more water and stop eating after 8pm. 

So, here goes nothing. Time to face reality and start losing weight. We’re back to a daily blog now folks, so stay tuned for the honest truth that comes with looking back at that framed picture of yourself.

 Here is the BEFORE picture. 

And now time to do the work to get that “after” picture.

Sarah Jenkins