Day 73: Heavy truth

This is hard for me to write about, but I've been overweight much of my adult life. I've fought it every day or succumbed to defeat and gone off my strict diet. I started gaining weight at the very end of college. I got up to a size 22 before I realized how horrible I felt living like that.

I lost the weight and kept it off for a few years by smoking cigarettes and not eating and walking a lot. But the second I started eating normally again, I would gain the weight back. And I did. I got up to over 200 lbs. and started dieting again. It took me a good year before I lost all the weight, but I walked and walked on the bike trail and lost the weight. I also was smoking a lot and eating very little.

I looked great, got down to a size 2, but was probably near anorexia. I was eating some, under 1000 calories a day, just not enough. But the second I started eating normally I started gaining weight again. I've been fighting it off and on since I met my husband. I eat better when he is deployed because I refuse to cook for myself most of the time. Which is really a double-edged sword - good when I am able to control the cravings and eat my lean cuisine, and bad when my hungrier demons convince me to order pizza.

The last deployment I lost about 40 lbs. It wasn't nearly what I wanted to lose, but it was close enough that I didn't feel like a whale in Cancun, but I gained just about every pound back and this deployment has been harder. My body is getting older and frankly with being more stressed and busier, I haven't been as dedicated to losing the weight as I needed to be. It was hard to exercise with a baby when she was too little to ride in the jogging stroller. And when it was all I could do to get home and spend time with her, I didn't want to take those precious few hours and use them to exercise. I just wanted to be with her. Now that I have the time to exercise, I'm killing myself to lose at least some weight before my husband gets home. I ran four miles today. Did two workout routines and ate around 1000 calories today.

The hard part about it isn't the constant struggle so much as it is the overwhelming self-loathing. Our society is all about THIN. Being fat is like a plague or at least feels like one. When everyone around you is skinny, being fat feels like an accusation. It feels like everyone is looking at you and judging everything you wear, how lumpy you look in it, what you order in a restaurant, and some days it feels like being heavy means you don't deserve to live. Not literally, but not in public. I feel like our society doesn't want to see you if you aren't movie star perfect. When someone walks past us in Walmart wearing something three sizes too small, we take their picture and upload it to Facebook or People of Walmart so everyone can share our laugh.

People who've always been thin and never struggled with their weight, don't get it. I have friends who work out like fiends, but are pencil thin. They are too skinny and don't really have any idea what it is like to be overweight. They don't understand that we feel put down in every situation whether anyone is actually thinking it or not. They don't understand that an invitation to go to the pool with them makes us feel like even bigger whales. While I am glad my friends want to include me, they all look like super models and don't have any idea how much the weight weighs on me.

People look at me and see the size 16. They don't see that I eat the same breakfast, lunch and snack everyday because I have the calories measured out exactly, 700 or so for all three. That gives me 500 or so to eat in the evenings for snacks and meals and maintain a calorie burn of 300 calories without any additional exercise. I ate like this all year and still didn't lose weight. I ordered pizza a few too many times, but one pizza would last me four days at least. It isn't like I ate half of it at one sitting. The worst pigging out was three slices most of the time.

You would think that as tired as I am of living this half life, where I hide in my house so people don't see and judge how ugly I am, have events that I don't want to attend because I don't have anything to wear that hides me enough. I will stress for weeks about attending an event because I feel so fat. I dread visiting friends and family because I don't look they way I wish I did.

I even struggle with looking forward to my husband's return because I am ashamed of the way I look. I don't know which is really eating at me, the struggle to be thin or the struggle to accept this is who I am. I have run four miles seven times in the last week. I have eaten frozen dinners, grilled chicken, and cereal for dinner. I have lost the same 7 lbs. four times since New Years.

There really isn't an end to this blog because I don't have an ending. This is something that I will struggle with until I die. I feel like a perpetual failure. I feel unworthy of having friends, going out. I hide and hide and hide until I've lost enough weight I feel less horrifying.

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How do we live with messages that preach a perfection that few can attain? We're all broken some on the inside and some on the outside, but most a little bit of both. How am I supposed to raise my daughter to like herself, the way she is, when I hate the way I look? How on one hand can I feel like summoning all my strength to let go of the pain and just accept that this is who I am, loving, caring, funny, organized, perfectionist, fluffy and on the other want to beat this stupid thing once and for all. I've beaten it back so many times I can't count, but never beaten it. I only lose less weight the next time I try.

I just say to you, if you're not overweight, spend some time today thinking about everything you put in your mouth. Imagine you couldn't just eat without counting every fat gram, every calorie. Imagine you had to decide your wardrobe for the day based on what made you look least like one of Dr. Oz's fat globs. Imagine how much it hurts to feel like the whole world thinks you're a disaster because of your physical self. Especially in our culture where we can forgive ugly, cruel, but never fat. 

Day 285: Politically correct and all that jazz

Today is grade check for my students for sports and extra curricular activities. If they aren't passing everything, they can't play. You would think this would be motivating, but no, I have an astronomical failure rate. I have never had a failure rate so high, or at least it feels high to me. I have two-thirds of one of my classes failing and I feel devastated. They are failing because they refuse to turn in homework. 80% or more of it was done in class, and they still cannot turn it in.

I feel like being politically correct had its roots in being kind and tolerant, but has run rampant where we can no longer speak the truth in case we hurt someone's feelings. Children are taught to have self esteem, but don't understand earning the right to be proud of yourself. We all have the right to be loved, accepted as human beings, but the right to pride and some aspects of respect have to be earned. I understand watching the little league team that loses be disappointed and wanting to cheer them up. Who can't empathize with disheartened children, but do we do them a disservice by negating the goal they failed to achieve. If losing doesn't sting, who works to win?

What do these two ideas have to do with each other? I think the increased pressure on adults to focus on raising self-esteem has led to a severe flaw in our current educational system. Maybe this is a problem in the geographical area I live in, maybe others are seeing it as well, but students seem to feel more and more like the world owes them a life and less and less like they have to do anything to earn a place in this world.

I don't know that I have any answers today, but I do know that unlimited chances to complete assignments, minimum allowable grades, and the ilk has led to an attitude of apathy seeming to pervade our current culture. I never would have accepted a zero for an assignment. I might not have put 100% into my work all the time, but I generally wanted to do well. I often was the kid with the 98% wondering why I lost two points. It just baffles me that students will sit in class while we're working on a project, do very little and then just take a zero. This was work they didn't even need to take home. If they worked with average diligence, they should have been able to finish it in class. And it was a facebook page for William Shakespeare. They should have had so much fun with that! I made it relevant to their culture, gave them a tangible product, passed out rubrics and gave them class time to work. About 80% of what was turned in would have been failing grades for 6th graders when I was their age.

They don't equate what they do with what they deserve. I saw students turn in slop and truly believe it was amazing. But our school puts pressure on us to give the kids the benefit of the doubt, "Is failing Johnny really what is best for him in the long run?"

When did that answer quit being, 'yes'?!?!? My parents told me the stove was hot; they watched me and tried to protect me from burning myself; eventually, I either learned the stove was hot by listening or touching it. If you never let a child get disappointed, burned or failed, then have you failed him?

Most of the best things I have ever learned was from when I failed or struggled. Even if the lesson was just that I am capable of getting back up, I learned my strengths and weaknesses through the struggle. Today, we use being politically correct and leaving no children behind as a smoke screen to disguise that we're letting emotions govern reason. I am all for being kind, but the greatest kindness might be pointing kids toward things they can really feel good about instead of keeping them from failure.

I'm just afraid by the time we as adults realize we've failed them, it will be too late for our society. The movie "Idiocracy" feels more and more prophetic and less comedic every year. Water your plants people, Gatorade isn't good for them.

Day 355: Suck it up

Yesterday, a new wife facing her husband's first deployment commented that her mother-in-law (MIL) had told her to "Suck it Up and deal! You signed up for this." She was very upset and frustrated with her MIL. I told her I could relate.

First, my mother-in-law is AWESOME! We <3 her!! But we did have a similar conversation many years ago. It was Chad's second deployment, but my first. We were just engaged and busily planning the wedding. It was one of those days when the weight of missing him just drags me down and the emptiness he leaves in my heart twists and turns inside my stomach like a fear dagger. I don't remember exactly what I said or what she said, but the essence was this is what you signed up for. My son doesn't need to deal with your tears and weakness. You need to be strong for him.

I was taken aback. Here was the one person I expected to understand the worry, fear, longing, love and she was sharp, almost cold to my plea for support. It was one of those comments that stung for a time, but got forgotten. She is very supportive and probably reading this right now so I don't want her to think I am upset, but I have learned a few things along the way, now three deployments into this marriage.

1) After two glasses of wine, don't ask my MIL anything unless you expect the unvarnished truth! 2) Her experience and fears are different than mine. She saw me vulnerable and weak and went straight into momma bear mode. She saw the woman her son loves desperately, has gone over and beyond to propose to and make a life for, being weak. She saw her son's heart breaking when I change my mind about marrying him or marry him and eventually cheat or leave. She saw with her heart and wanted to be sure that I was strong enough to maintain a marriage during the most difficult of times and that I would be strong enough that he could leave me, children, home to go into war without worry. His mind has to be singularly focused on what he is doing or he could put himself or others in danger.

While I still have those days when I need to cry, vent, rage, she now realizes that I need those releases so I can be the strong independent woman her son needs and not lose my mind. While she will never understand exactly what I am feeling during these long stretches of time he is away in danger, I will never fully appreciate her perspective either as a mother fearful for her precious child. We are both here loving and supporting my husband and each other. Military wife/MIL lesson aside, the real lesson is to see things from someone else's vantage point before you get your panties in a wad. Often the view is surprising.