100

I am hesitant to say it out loud.  I haven't made a big deal about it and probably won't for lots of reasons.

I don't actually know my heaviest weight ever because I quit letting the doctor's office weigh me out of shame at my huge-ness.

I'm really proud & really not proud (YES, BOTH) of losing 100 pounds- geesh, that's approaching what a small, fit adult weighs.

It's great that I've lost that weight, but it's awful that I ever weighed that much to start with.

To go around telling people "I've lost 100 pounds" would 1) be looking for pats on the back, and I am NOT doing this for anyone but me and 2) would be telling the rest of the world, "Look at what a fat cow I was, now I'm just a less fat cow."  Yeah, I'm not into that.

But, here it is anyway- in spite of myself.  I have been holding right around the 100 pounds from my heaviest recorded weight mark for about a week or so now.  It's hard to believe.  It was more work than anyone knows.

I can't believe I'm going to say this either but 100 more and I'll be just about, almost to a good weight for me.  I can't imagine how that will feel or look.  It's scary but exciting.

R :)

Please don't assume

Assumptions- you know what they say about assuming.  I kind of think it's true!

As a morbidly obese person I see/hear/get a lot of them.  I watch other fat folks get the "treatment" too, and I hurt for them.  From work to the gym to public places and, though they mean well, even friends and family.  People see a grossly fat person and make a lot of assumptions.  I think it's human nature.  I am sure I've been guilty of making assumptions about people too based on outward appearances.  I think it's hard to not do so.  I get that.

But as I always told my daughter, "Just because your brain thinks it, doesn't mean your mouth has to say it."

People assume if you're extremely fat:

• you eat bad food all the time
• you never eat healthy things
• you don't do any exercise or that it's not possible you're physically active
• you sit around and watch t.v. all the time
• you're lazy
• you're stupid
• you have no hearing or no feelings if you do hear (or they just don't care how their comments feel to you if you do hear)
• you're "jolly"- yes, people really do think that but that's another blog post some other time perhaps

I cannot tell you how truly shocked some intelligent, well-meaning people I have worked with and even family members have been when they have seen what I eat on a regular basis.  I have heard, "Oh, you eat that?!?"  I even heard once, "Wow, you actually eat healthily."  Yes, imagine that, a lard-butt person could actually make wise choices and eat well and still be fat.  

For the record, yes, I used to eat way too much fast food- I joke that one butt cheek is Big Macs and the other is french fries.  I'm not proud of it, but it's true- I'm sure that my fast food days are part of why I'm larger than the Goodyear Blimp.  While that's true, it's NOT true that I never ate healthily.  I have always also eaten lots of healthy foods.

People are shocked when they hear/see/find out that I go to the gym faithfully.  I can always tell who is new at the gym we go to;  they're the ones whose faces seem shocked to see the elephant on the elliptical or compliment me when they come to Zumba for the first time and see how "good" the fat lady in the back is doing.  Never mind that I've been coming to Zumba since May. 

I watch VERY VERY little television- actually watch, probably none.  The tube is on at my house in the evenings, but I'm always doing something and not actually watching.  I could be more described as loosely listening to the telly while I am doing something else- grading papers, writing lesson plans, crocheting something or doing some other something with my hands.

And on that note, I am FAR from lazy.  I don't actually know how to sit still and just do nothing.  When we go on hiking trips, I take things with me to keep me busy in the car, in the hotel, in the tent- yarn, books, projects, something.  I cannot just relax and do nothing- not in my abilities one bit.  So the whole fat person=lazy person- just not true either.

I am not the world's brightest person for sure, but I'm not ignorant either.  Just in case you didn't know, a person's gut or butt size doesn't equal their IQ.   I just saw a post on the web this morning making fun of someone in a high government position because of their obesity saying how they couldn't possibly be trusted to make good decisions or be a good analyst or advisor just because they were grossly obese.  Oh, that just makes me so angry inside

The last two really strike at the core of me the most probably.  Obese people have feelings like everyone else.  We get tired of being the "butt" of people's jokes (pardon the awful pun).  We get tired of the stares and the pointing and the faces and the rude comments.  We see and hear them all and they strike at the heart of us just like they would you.  They follow us long after you've said them and moved on and forgotten us.  They go with us and haunt and hurt us and do their damage when we're no longer thought about by you.  You may see a fat person as jolly, maybe that's because we hide our hurt behind the jokes.  Or maybe that's because we've learned to be kind to others and make others laugh because we don't want to be that kind of hurt in the world.  

I just know I'm tired of assuming people who see me and think I'm just a big, bumbling, dumb, lard-eating, fat lazy-ass. 

I am a big fat, intelligent woman who works hard all day long teaching your children to read, add, subtract, tell time, write, understand the world they live in and helping them grow up to be kind and caring human beings in a world full of ugliness.  I then take my fat self to the gym daily and work it out HARD five-six days a week for an hour or more at a time (with a trainer, on my own, in Zumba and water aerobics classes) before going home and preparing a healthy, well rounded, low fat, high nutrient meal for my husband, son and self.  Then I move on to the stack of school work and household chores I have to tackle before falling into bed at a late hour to repeat it all the next day.

Do me a favor will you?  Get to know a person- any person before you assume anything about them. Find out who they are on the inside.  Walk a mile with them before you judge them.  Or how about just not judging them at all?