a weighty issue

i've talked about this before. of course, that would have been on my now vaporized diary-x blog. at any rate, my weight has been the subject of my blogging many times over and here it is again.

about two years ago, i lost 40 pounds. since moving, changing jobs and marrying ktb, i've gained half that back. i haven't gained any weight in about 6 months. the re-gain occurred between december of 2005 and april of 2006 in the depths of my depression. there are many reasons why i have gained and lost weight over my lifetime. genetics, depression, stress, emotional/psychological issues, abuse name but a few. i have struggle with it my ENTIRE life and i married a man who has never had to worry about his weight.

talk about confronting an issue.

my husband enjoys watching oprah, especially when dr. mehmet oz appears on the show for more fun and games with biology. i find his information extremely helpful and i appreciate his perspective on the issues of weight and risks for heart disease and cancer. every time bunny watches one of these appearances, the issue of my weight rears its ugly head.

now, before you think ill of bunny, i must inform you that he is not mean or spiteful or hurtful about my weight. he loves me for who i am and it is my own issues that make this difficult to deal with. however, even though he comes from a place of love and concern when he brings up lifestyle changes for better health, it's still hard for me.

i have yo-yo'd many times. yes, i am well above the point at which the government has deemed i would be healthy in proportion to my weight. the stock from which my genes are derived are dense, plump, german folk who never worried a day in their lives whether or not they were over a government limit that might mean higher health insurance rates, much less a higher risk for fatal diseases. they just were who they were. they ate what they ate and lived as they lived.

i have compared myself cruelly to everyone else in the room, to those on the covers of magazines, to everyone in movies and tv shows and to people as i walk the streets in the everyday. i never measure up. well, i measure up which is the issue. i have been the fat girl since i was 10 and hit puberty, or more accurately, puberty hit me. i have not shopped in "regular" stores in my adult life with the exception of two years in my teens when i was borderline anorexic. i have been ridiculed, villified, discriminated against and generally made to feel less than human on more than one occasion. i know it was one reason i did not date for many years.

still, i know that weight is not the whole of my character. i know that my struggles with weight have had a large (no pun intended) part in creating who i am today as are many other things that have left their fingerprints on me. i know that when i look in the mirror, the adjectives i use to describe myself are rarely kind and often perfectionist which only reinforce the things i have been lead to believe by a society that judges based on appearance and my own demons.

so, what is all this potentially nauseating, self-confessional, quasi-therapeutic dribble for?

i'm trying to come to terms with who i am, physically and spiritually and emotionally and psychologically. i am trying to be happy with what the universe has given me in this life INCLUDING my physical shell. i am trying to find a healthy way to live that does not put food at the center of my existence nor as the balm for my emotional wounds. i am trying to be healthy, live healthfully and think healthfully.

*snort*

no small order there. 27 years of unhealthy attitudes is a lot to overcome, but i can not give up hope that i will have some understanding and maybe, just maybe, gain a little wisdom when it comes to my body and how i see it/think it/feel it/LOVE it.