Not the Woman I Used to Be

Dear Sydney and John,

People make New Year's Resolutions all the time -- every year, in fact.  Most people never keep them.

Your dad made one this last year.  He decided it was time to lose the extra weight and get healthier.  He started working out, eating right, and the pounds and inches melted away.

Jeremy and John in Jeremy's old suit.

I had a choice then: to get on board with this new lifestyle or stay where I was and risk losing the best opportunity I would ever have to change my weight, my health.

It was a hell of a decision.

Your dad wanted to lose weight.  I wanted to eat.  I loved eating.  I had completely resigned myself to being a fat woman.  I was comfortable in my ample skin and truly believed that as long as I thought I was beautiful, that was all that mattered.

Before your dad's weight loss, I had envisioned a future for us that involved a retirement at home, steadily declining health, and really, it would be okay because we would be there together.  Then your dad started his health kick and as he was literally adding active years on to his life, I suddenly saw my weight as burden holding us back from European vacations, cruises, trips to see you kids and play with the grandkids.

I suddenly wanted something more than I wanted to eat.  I wanted this healthy lifestyle that would enable me to have all that time with you kids and your dad.

I started with calorie counting.  It is amazing to me how much of weight management is math.  Measure the portions and count the calories.  It sounds so easy.  It wasn't.

I was hungry so much of the time.  I was resentful of my self for eating my way into that situation.  I was resentful of your dad for changing our marital standards... we had gotten married fat, why couldn't we stay that way?  I was resentful of you kids, because without you, I would be free to eat a gallon of ice cream a day if I wanted to.

Then the first ten pounds came off and then the first twenty and suddenly the hunger was less and the excitement of the results outweighed the resentment and frustration.

At thirty pounds, people started noticing I was losing weight.

At fifty five pounds, I saw the other side of two hundred and it felt so good!

Sydney and me in my old pants... the ones that had gotten too tight when I finally decided to lose weight.

My first goal was always to get to 185.  My sister, who has a very similar build, had always encouraged me in my weight loss, always told me that "we" (her and I) look really good at 185.  And it was true that I had seen my sister, whose weight can fluctuate wildly, look really, really good at 130 and still look great at 185.

This morning, the scale gave me that magic number.  185.  That means I have lost sixty-nine pounds.  You two kids weigh less than that together right now at five and two.

I'm not done and I'm not dieting.  I finally see the food addiction for what it is.  Just like quitting smoking when your dad and I found out we were pregnant, there is no going back.  There are relapses and bad days, but having looked addiction in the eye, it's impossible to ignore it, deny it, or pretend it doesn't have a hold.  Like an alcoholic who can never again just have a "social" drink without plummeting down that slippery slope, I can never again ignore what goes into my body.

From 254 to 185.

My next goal weight is 150.  I don't know what that will look like or feel like.  But I do know that 185 feels as light as a feather and looks like heaven to my eyes.  The mirror finally shows the woman I have had in my mind's eye all this time.

I don't really know how the two of you see me now, or how you saw me then.  I suspect that it's all the same to you.  But I do know that you both love the new level of activity in my life and the ease with which I get up and down off of the floor to play with you.  I grew up with an overweight mom and I know that I never once, not as a child, a teen, or adult, never once have I cared what she looked like.  But I have always cared when she didn't feel good, or couldn't go do something with us because of her weight.  I watched her struggle with her weight her whole life and I know if she could go back in time to her 30's, when it was easier to do something about her weight, she would.  So this year, right now, while I can, I'm doing this for you, for your dad, for my mother and sister, and mostly, for myself.

Love,
Mom