Fat Defined Me

Today I was thinking about what the fat persona I have lived with all these years has meant. I realised that because I was fat for so much of my life, the fat persona was essentially who I had become - the fat defined me. I saw myself as fat and felt (rightly or wrongly) that everyone else saw me as fat. And that was the main thing that I felt people associated with me, because it played such a pervading role in my life. So I guess the fat defined me in a negative sense. And it contributed in a big way to me disliking myself and feeling that I was worthless - although it wasn't the reason for that, I think that came before and that is something I am working on whilst losing the weight because I realise weight loss isn't a magical cure all in that sense.

And, since I have been on this journey to become a normal weight I guess what has defined me is this challenge. My losing weight has become what defines me and I relish it. I feed off it. As I see the weight disappear I feel that I am clawing back a bit more control, I am becoming more empowered and freer. Opportunities are opening themselves up and I have hope for the future and for what I can achieve in other areas of my life. Losing the weight and realising I can be normal has made me start to feel that anything is possible. I feel that once I conquer this I can conquer anything.

However, realising that what has been defining me and my life over the past 16 months has been my weight loss is also quite scary. I defined myself before as a fat person, now I define myself as someone who is losing weight and achieving a goal, but what will that leave me with once I get there? I have known weight issues for nearly my whole life, what will it be like not to worry about weight anymore? Who will I be then? Without the weight and without the weight loss goals and achievements, who am and how will I be defined? I guess, or I am hoping, that I will then be defined as 'normal' but what does that actually mean? I don't know, I just know that I never felt normal before and it is what I have longed to be. So this is a transitional phase, a journey of discovery. I need to learn who I am aside from weight and weight loss. I need to work out what normal means to me, so I know it when I get there. One thing I do know is that (although they definitely help), normal is far more than just a number on the scales or a dress size.

little miss normal

Letting Her Go is Harder Than I Thought

I think what I most want to be is normal. Just someone who doesn't stand out for being fat or thin. To me normality is when I will feel I have succeeded. But how will I know when I have got there?

After losing close to 6 stone so far (in less than 18 months), I don't know if people actually see me as fat anymore. I am definitely not thin yet, but getting a lot closer to normal. Some people close to me tell me that I am normal now. I am a size 16 these days so in that sense I suppose I could say I am. I can shop in pretty much every store. I don't feel that people are constantly looking at me or commenting negatively to each other, or thinking 'god she's huge, how did she get so big' or perhaps 'what a lazy cow!' Not that they necessarily were before either, but I felt like they were... I felt so insecure and so ashamed of who I was and how I looked. I hated how I was and although in one sense I totally identified with it (with the fat), and it consumed me, making me feel terrible and useless, worthless all the time... in another sense, I knew that person wasn't the real me. I felt that the real me was somewhere in there, hidden under the layers of fat, insecurity, pain, hurt and self loathing. A normal, pretty girl who wanted the chance to be happy, free and uninhibited. A girl who would blend in with the crowd and if she was noticed, it would be positively rather than negatively.

I feel like that girl is starting to emerge now, bit by bit. I have about another 2 and a half to 3 stone left to lose so she feels like she is in reach compared with where I started from. But as the weight has come off I have realised that saying farewell to the fat girl isn't just about losing the weight. Although I hated the fact that i felt my identity was simply as 'the fat girl' in other people's eyes, I have lived with her for so long that she has been my identity too. And although I want to let her go, it isn't quite as easy as all that.

Allowing my other self to emerge, who I consider my real self, is a challenging and quite frightening thing. Not least because she hasn't been presented to the world before and I haven't really had much practice in being her. In fact, it is a learning process, getting to know myself away from my fat identity. And although I don't want to be fat anymore, I long to be normal... I also know there is some security in the fat identity. Where I have felt rejected or treated badly or not good enough etc in the past, I suppose I have blamed that on the fat, or people seeing me as a fat person and nothing else. When the fat is gone and the 'real me' is exposed to the world, I know that will be quite scary and put me in a vulnerable place. I won't have the fat identity to blame things on anymore. If someone doesn't like me, the way I look or who I am, then they will in effect be rejecting the real me. That does scare me because I am still trying to build my self confidence and I do often wonder how likeable and attractive I am, or will be, fat or thin. But I am working on that.

And in a way, I guess letting go of my fat self is a bit like letting go of a friend I have grown up with and shared a lot with during my life to this point, but we don't have so much in common anymore and actually in some ways she is dragging me down and holding me back, so I know I really need to let her go and move on. Difficult but true. So I am doing it in stages, little by little I am letting her go. I am getting there but part of that process is realising and admitting to myself that it harder than I thought it would be. I can't just rip the bandage off, I need to peel it away a tiny bit at a time.

Thats it for now.

Till next time,

Little Miss Normal (a little more every day)