My Great Passion in Life.....is being Fat?!?

I've watched the Weight Loss shows and have seen when the contestants have the emotional breakdowns and the audience is shown the "Why" of their obesity. The majority of the time it can be traced back to some traumatic childhood incident that affected this person in such a negative way that they lost the ability to control their appetite and their weight ballooned to a grotesque amount. I always cry along with them and then secretly wish that I had some terrible "thing" that I could blame my weight on. But no, I had a good life. I was happy!! From the time I was a toddler, I had a sunny disposition. Everyone adored me, and that sentiment has followed me my whole life. Sure, I was chubby...but I was pretty and smart and funny and witty and sexy and confident and popular and charming and just full of personality. What wasn't there to love?? I didn't struggle with depression, or loneliness or self loathing or anything else that I could get psychological help for. I just had love for food that had been passed down for generations. This attitude took me through my 20's and into my 30's. It brought me to a marriage with a wonderful, handsome man and gave me four beautiful children. And then something happened. Perhaps a self realization, a moment of clarity where I saw my life for the farce that it was. I started to wonder why I couldn't get a handle on my weight. Why I had earned 116 credit hours for college and then dropped out and had no career. Why I was a good mom but not a great mom. Why I was a good wife but not a great wife. Why I was a good daughter, friend, sister...but just not great. Why I loved God but could not commit to a real relationship. Why was everything in my life just adequate but not fantastic? Where oh where was my passion? And then I saw it for what it was...my only passion, the only thing I was really, really good at was being fat. Why? I began to question myself. I started to look where all the good weight loss shows looked: at my past. Well, my parents were divorced and my biological father had really pulled a number on me, mentally and spiritually. He is a pastor of a Mega Church yet I know how severely he would beat my mother while she was pregnant with me; she was so badly beaten that both she and I almost died at my birth. I suppose I may have some repressed issues with that guy. I recently remembered how when I was 8 or 9 and began to first get chubby, he and his wife and his parents would all crowd into the bathroom with me and place me on the scale and tsk about how much I weighed. Then they would offer me one dollar for every pound I would lose. I guess it didn't work. When I was 20 years old I got a job near where they lived and I moved in with him for the first time since I was a baby. There was a weekly weigh in where they "encouraged" me to lose weight. They also asked me not to sit on their wicker patio furniture anymore because they felt that I was ruining it. I have never shared these things with anybody. Not my mom, my step-dad, my husband, sisters, brother or friends. This is the first time I put it in writing. Can I blame weighing 265 pounds on that alone? I don't know. Is there more? Yes. I haven't spoken to my dad in 15 months but I haven't told him why. I just stopped answering his phone calls, emails and Facebook messages. Sometimes I like to avoid dealing with things.

Well, lots of people have crappy Dads. But I had a great Mom and a great Step-Dad (who legally adopted me so my biological father wouldn't have to pay child support!). My best friends were my sisters and my hero was my brother. Life was good. It really was. I don't have many complaints. I'm still a little spoiled from my parents and so are my kids. (My girls have an entire room dedicated to American Girl Dolls....if you know what that is about, you are pretty much in awe right now!! Thanks Gramma and Grandpa!) However, in the past six months as I have been on this, for lack of a better word, "journey" I have realized that my mom is narcissistic and a major hypochondriac. She can be overly exhausting. I love her with all my heart but sometimes....oh, sometimes.....why I'd like to.....well, you get the point. I don't have to spell it out for you.

So, bringing it back to present day...I have no fabulous talents, interests or hobbies. Unless shoveling food into my mouth counts in any of those categories. I have joined the BLC and the challenge was to write a blog, which I have done. I wasn't sure what I was going to write about and apparently I started typing and my heart took over. I'm not 100% sure where I need to go and what I need to do but I think that I know now that I don't love myself quite as much as I thought I did. And that perhaps I am self sabotaging with food. My next step is to find passion in being healthy. Find passion in exercise. And to shelf the "F-it" attitude!

Thanks for listening to me!