My First Blog Post

Nothing tastes as good as thin feels. What a load of crap. If that were true, everyone would be thin. I never would have gotten fat in the first place if I believed that ever-so encouraging phrase.  There are countless reasons why people overeat. Mine happens to be that I use food as a comfort tool. When I’m in a good place emotionally, I may bake cookies with applesauce instead of butter. When I’ve had a somewhat discouraging day, I’ll most likely pull out the butter but then use an egg and sugar substitute to ‘balance it out’. When I’ve had an all out rotten-to-the-core day….well, bring on the fat and brown sugar, baby.   Sigh.

This brings me to my purpose for being here. I can best do this by directing you back to the name of my blog, Fat Girl Wearing Thin. You see, the fat girl is me. Well, technically the fat girl was me about 10 years ago. My weight was normal through high school, however in college my freshman fifteen turned into the sophomore sixty. By the time I was twenty-seven years old I carried 235 pounds on my five foot-two frame.

I’ve been at a healthy weight for several years now. Getting it to come off though – now, that took some time considering I did it without surgery, weight loss groups, or exercise classes. I just stumbled through the process with lots of trial and error until I finally made it to my goal weight.

So, why am I sitting here blogging?  Shouldn’t ‘thin’ people should be out living the dream? What’s the dream? Well for me that would be popping into Victoria’s Secret and purchasing that ultra-sexy bra and panties the model is wearing in the window, while wearing form-fitting workout gear from Athleta, after having just pigged out completely guilt-free at The Cheesecake Factory. But, uh….. no; that’s not what I’m doing. You see, I have this fat girl stalking me. She has been lurking around ever since I broke through my final plateau and landed at my goal weight. She lives inside me and I am constantly trying to keep her at bay. I don’t provoke her or try to stress her out too much. If I do, I’m afraid she just may decide to take over this body and return it to her impressive heftier size.  Someone once told me, ‘Ellen, losing the weight isn’t the hard part….it’s keeping it off.’  It is a daily battle to maintain an ideal weight, especially when you’ve been obese.  I spent so much effort ‘getting to goal’ that I never considered what to do once I got there.

I still have days when the stress is too much and she says, ‘to hell with it’ and so I whip up a batch of lemon squares (and then hide them so my husband doesn’t see them.) And there have been many times when I have HAD IT with exercise and she whispers, ‘You just need more protein; here, have this jar of peanut butter,’ and I eagerly pull it from the cupboard. I clearly can be my own worst enemy and if I’m not careful, she’ll get her way and I’ll find my way back to obesity.

However, if I can look beyond my daily struggles and connect with others that struggle with me, maybe together we can live the life we were meant to live.

Welcome.

Share.

And be on the lookout; the fat girl is wearing thin.