Who am I?-Transparent Confessions of a Fat Girl

 Who am I? That’s a good question!  Be warned this is a long post...

 I ask myself that at times! Well, let me introduce you to who I am right now, as far as I know. I am Cheryl,  nearly 30 years old, I have a good career, and love for creativity. I am known to not keep all my eggs in one basket. I have an entrepreneurial spirit! I can be a bit random, spontaneous, and  slightly impulsive. I love art of any form.  Aside from my full time career working in higher education, I am also a photographer and branding designer. (I told you love creativity!) I am always busy doing something. If I am not at work I am likely working on making some new props, designing a logo, taking pictures, playing with my cats, or spending time with family. I am a wife, a sister, and friend and I love making people laugh! Sometimes I bite off more than I can chew (pun intended), but I always find a way to make things work. I am involved with some great charitable foundations and like spending my time giving back to others. Sometimes I forget to give time to focus on taking care of me.

 I have a good life full of friends, silliness, laughter, ups, downs, struggles, and victories. Oh did I mention I weigh over 300 lbs? Well I do. I know the common opinion I’ve encountered over the years of being an overweight young women, is that I must be lazy, sit at home in front of the TV, and eat bon bons, wow so not true. What exactly are bon bons anyway?  Now don’t get me wrong, I am not using that in any way to justify my being overweight as ok, or not my fault. I know it’s my fault, I’ve made the decisions to do other things with my time rather than invest in my health. My bad choices, such as eating what’s quick and convenient, and not participating in regular exercise,  have obviously resulted in a massive problem- known as my waistline.  I would eat what I wanted when I wanted to, and how much I wanted. Mind you most of my childhood I was with my single father eating microwave pizza and spaghetti, don’t worry we washed it down with Diet Coke, because that cancels out the calories right? Trust me I now know how bad diet soda is for you.  Although I am not a generally lazy person, I do have an aversion to working out, which I am working on! Hey I am an honest fat person ok? lol  I’ve used my back/knee problems as an excuse. It hurts at my size, it’s not pretty, and forget it happening in public!  I’ve almost got the courage up to join a gym and get over myself. Until then I have my elliptical, treadmill, ab-chair, and Zumba. OH, and no more excuses!



 So as you may guess I have tried other things before. I’ve starved myself for days only to binge later, low carb dieted, low calorie dieted, taken pills, shakes, considered surgery, and many more. So you might be asking what is so different about this time. Why is this the decision that is going to change it all?   First off, I’m ready!  That sounds good to say. Before I tried things mainly as a temporary fix to drop some pounds, to only gain it back again. I had no intention of eating that way for the rest of my life.  I am tired of being overweight,   for lack of a better term, it “sucks”.  I am ready to make lifelong improvements to my health.  I really like being active in life, and my weight is slowing me down. I get tired easily, I am extremely self-conscious, I think everyone is thinking about how gross I must look, and I am outgrowing the world around me in the worst ways. I now have ask for a seat belt extender to fly on a plane, some chairs with arms cut into my hips when I sit down, and I can’t ride an amusement park ride. A wake up call moment for me, was when I was on a family vacation earlier this year and we went to hiking up this moderately inclined trail to see a beautiful waterfall at the end. I was trying to “fake it till I make it”, however that did not work this time. The cold mountain air felt like needles in my lungs, I started getting dizzy, and I had to stop luckily about the time I thought I would fall over we saw a bear and we all had to stop so then I could play it off like I was not having a problem.  I used that as an excuse to go back to the car.  I was upset about it, but did not say a word. Maybe my family noticed, maybe they didn’t, no one said anything about it. It they did it would have just made me mad anyway.  For me I was fed up, I wanted to do something, and I could not do it! Instead of doing something at that moment to make a change, I just got upset, oh and as a family we went to Cold Stone, great choice right? 

So many people have tried to give me advise, some good, some really bad. Let me tell you this, if you know someone who struggles with their weight criticizing them about it only makes it worse! You don’t know their situation and you should not judge, but when you see them making an effort simply encourage.  I won’t say who, but I have a particular person in my life who always tries to give me advise on my weight. This person has the WORST eating habits. They eat mostly processed foods with tons of sweets.  This persons advice does not help me, it just makes me angry.  No mater who it is, a person has to be ready to change. I’ve always been big, well since 4^th grade, I was chubby. Slowly over the years though childhood, adolescent, and into adulthood I’ve gotten bigger. Honestly it did not stop me from doing much until the last few years.  As a teen I did everything I wanted to, I biked, swam, dated, traveled, camped, had fun, laughed a lot, and hid my emotional problems that were associated with being overweight.  I really just ignored it, you know they say ignorance is bliss! Ahem- that is really not true.  I’ll be honest with you the last 50 pounds snuck up on me. You may think that sounds stupid, but when you are already overweight, not monitoring it, and rarely go to the Dr. because you hate getting on a scale, it’s really quite easy to do.  My bathroom scale says Err when I step on it. There is a 300 lb. limit. So I have even outgrown my scale- OUCH.
 

Just recently I weighed at the doctors and  I wanted to cry, but there is no time for crying now. Just time for action. Time for discovering ways to improve my health. Time to take the stairs, walk more, exercise, eat healthy foods, limit portions, and enjoy life.  It is time to be accountable for what I put in my body. I will be logging with I eat, following a healthy calorie limit, and enjoying food for what it is, not using it as a way to cope. This is all very transparent and more than I have shared with anyone about my weight. So why am I sharing it? It’s an accountability to myself!  I’ll be taking this journey at day at a time, setting goals, reaching goals, and feeling better. I am sharing this because I really hope it helps someone else to start their journey.  I will be posting more specifics, but first I wanted you to know where I am coming from. Monday I will be weighing in (on my new scale), and posting my measurements. Umm… wow I don’t know how I feel about that. But I will be doing it.  I want to track my progress from this point forward. So you may be wondering why I named this blog, Extra Fluffy. It was actually a joke between a friend and I as teens. We were not fat, we were just extra fluffy. Well it’s time to lose the fluff!