{"id":4278,"date":"2010-04-28T08:58:53","date_gmt":"2010-04-28T06:58:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.breigh.com\/wordpress\/?p=4278"},"modified":"2015-01-25T13:24:03","modified_gmt":"2015-01-25T12:24:03","slug":"confessions-of-a-fat-girl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/archives\/4278","title":{"rendered":"Confessions of a Fat Girl"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"targetweight\"<\/a> On March 6th I had finally lost 50 lbs<\/a>.\u00a0 It took me a while to lose the last 1-2 lbs to get there, which feels silly I mean it\u2019s ONLY 1-2 lbs.\u00a0 It seemed to go on forever though as I had reached that dreaded plateau everyone told me was coming.\u00a0 Since then I\u2019ve been teeter tottering back and forth within a range of 5 lbs.\u00a0 Some weeks I\u2019m down 5 lbs, and other weeks I\u2019m up.\u00a0 I know it has to do with the fact that everyone always reaches a plateau at some point and a change in routine is in order, but also my incredibly wonky hormones which have me in a constant flux of water weight.\u00a0\u00a0 Regardless, it\u2019s not a constant downward shift.<\/p>\n

I know my body is still changing because I feel the difference in my clothes.\u00a0 I go to the shops and try on clothes 2-3 sizes smaller than what I used to wear and they fit.\u00a0 Things I tried on just a few months ago are looser now and clothes I already owned have slowly gone from \u2018can get away with it\u2019 to \u2018too big and sloppy\u2019.\u00a0 So I know that changes are still happening.\u00a0 I just can\u2019t help but feel discouraged though\u2026<\/p>\n

When I look in the mirror, I see the same old me.\u00a0 I don\u2019t see anything different than I saw a year ago, and that frustrates me.\u00a0 When I go out shopping or to crowded places I get warm and sweaty, just the same as I did back then and I feel like those 50 lbs has made no difference.\u00a0 When I get on my bike, within a few minutes my thighs still burn like hell, I pant and my face goes beet red.\u00a0 The little baby like rolls are still on my thighs staring up at me every time I have to pee.\u00a0 Almost all of the things I hated about my body and my weight are still there, after almost a year and losing 50 lbs\u2026 so for the first time since beginning this journey I\u2019m starting to get frustrated and lose patience with it.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s so hard to find motivation at times like this.\u00a0 Sure there is the motivation of being thin, but I\u2019m not like a lot of other women.\u00a0 Many have been thin all their lives, gain weight and then long for their former bodies. I have no memories of that to keep me strong.\u00a0 I\u2019ve been heavy my entire life, so I don\u2019t have any thoughts of a fabulous and thin body to keep me going.\u00a0 I have no idea what it\u2019s like to be thin, to go up flights of stairs without getting out of breath, to be able to cross my legs or shop in stores that don\u2019t carry plus sizes, to never have to worry if my butt is going to fit properly into the tiny little chairs on outdoor patios.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve never felt comfortable enough or confident enough in myself to just post any photo of me that is taken, not care who tags me on Facebook, for example, when posting photos they\u2019ve taken of me when I was out somewhere with them.\u00a0 I\u2019ve always tried to post the photos that hide my weight the best, never having the confidence or feeling of freedom that comes with being thin, to just let people see me for what I am.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s frustrating to have lost 50 lbs and still be heavier than a lot of my friends who are also overweight.\u00a0 It\u2019s frustrating to have lost 50 lbs and still be heavier than friends were before they lost weight, when they considered themselves to be huge.\u00a0 It\u2019s frustrating to have lost 50 lbs and wear a size that friends pull off the rack and still call them massive.\u00a0 It\u2019s frustrating to be the heaviest person in my circle of friends and family and listen to them say they know what it\u2019s like when they don\u2019t.\u00a0 To hear people talk about how hard it is for them when they started out 50-100lbs lighter than me even when they started.\u00a0 It\u2019s frustrating to sit with friends I consider to be thin and have them talk about how disgustingly fat they are, how they can only <\/em>fit into sizes that are 5 sizes smaller than what I\u2019m wearing now.\u00a0 Am I over sensitive?\u00a0 Are they insensitive? I don\u2019t know\u2026 all I know is it\u2019s frustrating and it hurts sometimes.\u00a0 I also know that it’s all relative and that a woman who is 400 lbs may read my story and think that I don’t realize how good I have it, but I can only speak from the place I am in at the moment.<\/p>\n

Still\u2026 the hardest part, again, has been not seeing the difference for myself.\u00a0 Looking in the mirror and seeing the same face staring back at me day after day.\u00a0 It\u2019s like I want to look in the mirror one day and see another person.\u00a0 To suddenly have this thin, beautiful woman looking back at me.\u00a0 Yet there I am, just me.<\/p>\n

Last night I was talking to my husband about it.\u00a0 We were looking at photos people took of us at the portrait evening<\/a> on Saturday, and surprisingly I didn\u2019t hate every photo that was taken of me.\u00a0 Not in the way I used to anyway.\u00a0\u00a0 In the past I would have been scared of people putting them on Facebook for all my friends to see, or looked at them and been disgusted with myself.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t feel that though and for the first time I noticed a change\u2026 not in how I looked but how I felt.<\/p>\n

I was telling this to my husband and he told me to pull up a photo of myself from before I started trying to lose weight this time, so I did\u2026 and for the first time since this whole thing began, I was able to look at myself and see a difference.<\/p>\n

\"50<\/a><\/p>\n

In the photo on the left I am smiling, but I am quite possibly the unhappiest I have ever been.\u00a0 My mother in law had asked for some close up photos of our faces because she wanted to do a painting of us together.\u00a0 At that time I was not taking any photos of myself at all, ever.\u00a0 I hated the way I looked, I felt fat, bloated and so incredibly ugly.\u00a0 I took a few photos of my husband and he was happy with them, yet no matter how many photos we took of me, the more I hated them.\u00a0 My hair was in a weird place then too, growing out from my disastrous decision to cut my hair short<\/a>, so it was always in a mixture of clips and headbands.\u00a0 Ugh, I just hated everything about myself at that time.<\/p>\n

The photo on the right was taken this past Saturday by one of the men in my photo club.\u00a0 When he asked if I wanted to pose I wasn\u2019t as hesitant as I might have been before, I was not dreading the photos as much either.\u00a0 I don\u2019t even hate the photo. In fact, I quite like it.\u00a0 It\u2019s been a long time since I\u2019ve been able to say that about any photo of myself.<\/p>\n

When I look at those photos I can see the difference.\u00a0 I know it\u2019s there\u2026 yet when I look in the mirror, it\u2019s not.\u00a0 It\u2019s a really bizarre experience to have your brain so warped that you can see one thing in a photo but another in a mirror.\u00a0 So I am going to look at these photos every time I feel like giving up or like nothing has changed in my life\u2026 because there are changes, they just may not be as quick or drastic as I might like them to be at this stage.<\/p>\n

I am tired of being ashamed of myself.\u00a0 I have spent years hiding who I really am and how I really feel about things.\u00a0 Somehow thinking that if I don\u2019t say it that people won\u2019t realize just how fat and out of control I had become.\u00a0 That if I didn\u2019t go out or see people as much that they wouldn\u2019t know how unhappy I was or how difficult things had become.\u00a0 Things that to them are just day to day life, but for me were strenuous, painful and often embarrassing.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m tired of numbers ruling my life\u2026 pounds, kilos, sizes\u2026 constantly in fear of people knowing the truth about me and what they will think of me.\u00a0 If current friends will know the truth and somehow feel differently about me, if old flames or bitchy former friends will visit and get some sort of sick satisfaction from knowing my truth in numbers.\u00a0 I don\u2019t want to live like that anymore.<\/p>\n

I want to be open and take ownership of who I am.\u00a0 To accept that this body is mine and even though it\u2019s not what I\u2019d like it to be at the moment I have the power to change it.\u00a0 To love myself in spite of the things that may not be what I want them to be at the moment.<\/p>\n

So in the words of Diana Ross \u2013 I\u2019m Comin\u2019 Out<\/a>!<\/p>\n

My name is Tammy, not Breigh.\u00a0 Yes, Breigh is my middle name in real life but it\u2019s also an online persona I had created over the years.\u00a0 A mask to hide behind and someone to be when I didn\u2019t want to be me, I don\u2019t want to be that person anymore, she wasn\u2019t real and I don\u2019t need her.<\/p>\n

I was 308 lbs (139.7 kilos) in that photo on the left, I was wearing a size 58 (Euro sizes, I think it\u2019s a 28 Canadian) and have never hated myself more in my life.\u00a0 There was nothing I could do or anyone could say to make me feel anything other that fat and ugly.\u00a0 When I got on the scale, for the first time in almost a year, and saw that I had gotten over 300 lbs, I cried\u2026 and I didn\u2019t stop for a long time.<\/p>\n

Today I weigh 255 lbs, I wear a size 52-54 (Canadian 22-24) and I\u2019m frustrated, but I\u2019m happier.\u00a0 I don\u2019t live in constant paranoia that people are laughing at me behind my back and while a lot of things are still difficult, I take pleasure in being able to wear smaller sizes and that I feel a little bit more comfortable in my body.\u00a0 Sometimes, on a really really good day when I wear something that makes me feel good or bother to put some makeup on, I even feel sort of pretty for a moment.<\/p>\n

I want to keep going with this, I want to see how I feel with another 20lbs gone, to lose another 50 lbs and be able to say I\u2019ve lost 100!\u00a0 I want things to be easier for me, to enjoy life without all the issues of being a fat girl nagging me in the back of my mind and stopping me from getting out there and living my life.\u00a0 I want one day, to be able to walk into a shop and know that I can buy anything I want because they will<\/em> have it in a size that fits me.<\/p>\n

I just want to be happy with me.\u00a0 I\u2019m getting there\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On March 6th I had finally lost 50 lbs.\u00a0 It took me a while to lose the last 1-2 lbs to get there, which feels silly I mean it\u2019s ONLY 1-2 lbs.\u00a0 It seemed to go on forever though as I had reached that dreaded plateau everyone told me was coming.\u00a0 Since then I\u2019ve been …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13914,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[614,181,415,228,349,877,382],"class_list":["post-4278","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-weightloss","tag-confessions","tag-frustration","tag-self-awareness","tag-self-portraits","tag-weight-loss","tag-weightloss","tag-weight-woes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4278","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4278"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4278\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13915,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4278\/revisions\/13915"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13914"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4278"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4278"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4278"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}