Days 97 - 100

3 months. 6 kilos. What a fucking joke.

N and I went in with expectations that the results would be comparable to lapband. We’ve all heard sordid, sticky tales of lazy gluttons who get banded, eat nothing but crap, never moving from the couch except to eat, shit, work and sleep who are rewarded with up to 2 kilo per week losses. Well, if those sloths can lose 2 kilos per week doing nothing imagine how much I’ll lose! Cocky, judgmental, self important bullshit.

Month 1: Recover from surgery
Month 2: Germany
Month 3: Lose weight you gained in Germany

There are lots of ways to rationalise your own behaviour; to deal mentally with your achievements and your failures. As a fatty, there is often a lingering sense that you have nothing but excuses for your failure to reach and maintain an ideal weight. There are combating needs to maintain esteem and to maintain motivation.

C once told me that she didn’t believe that I had sufficient self loathing to lose a substantial amount of weight. It wasn't a criticism.

It makes sense to me then that the times in my life that I have lost the most weight have been times when I have been the unhappiest.

We generally afford ourselves the luxury of substantially private failures. Bad grade? Lie. Got dumped? Just don’t talk about it. Fat is wearable failure.

I am hesitant at times to write unless I lose. I certainly want to write more often than I want to weigh myself.

Bowlby, inspired in part by Anna Freud, was interested in the long term consequences of the initial caring relationship. Secure attachment results in a greater ability to confidently explore the world presumably because you internalise the primary caregiving relationship and apply the same principles to the world at large. Securely attached individuals trust that the world and the people around them will nourish them with the things that they need. Avoidant and anxiously attached individuals have learnt that the people they care about will fail them and that they cannot trust others to provide for them – both respond by attempting to reduce the likelihood of future hurt, one by avoiding the vulnerability that comes with relationships altogether, and the other by clinging desperately. A: ‘You can’t hurt me’. B: ‘Please don’t hurt me’.

Individuals who learn how to function despite having had problematic initial caring relationships are those who learn to forget the hurt of past betrayals and who have a continued ability to trust despite the real risk of being betrayed again.

I need to stop punishing myself with the hurtful things people I cared about have said to me.

‘You can't do ballet, you’re too fat for a leotard.’

‘You keep twisting your ankle because you carry too much weight.’

‘Are you sure you should wear that?’

'You'd be beautiful if you weren't fat'

‘If you want to lose weight, you will always be hungry.’

You will always be hungry
You will always be hungry
You will always be hungry

My Mother gave me a poem for my seventeenth birthday.

Let it wash over,
Rebirth comes only from death,
All will pass in time.

After a fight I asked her why she would stay with someone who was so clearly telling her they want her to go.

'It’s better than being alone'.

Fights seep through thin walls,
Better to hurt those you love,
Than to be alone.

I need an exorcism.

I have been adjusting to leaving food on my plate. As I scrape my plate into the garbage I remind myself to take slow deep breaths. I remember the same tight chested feeling walking into my first weight watchers meeting, joining a gym, attending a group fitness class, running in public, walking into Rebel Sports, walking into Supre.

Like a pavlovian dog, I’m slowly learning that when ordering, Large ≠ Love. Larger portions mean having to make an awkward decision about when to stop eating that my life experience has left me ill equipped to make. This results in the exaggerated discomfort of overeating when I do not make this decision effectively. It’s easier to make better choices when I don’t let myself get too hungry because I’m still holding onto the patently false idea that the hungrier I am, the more I need to eat in a meal.

It makes me think about the correlations between poverty and obesity. Poor people love with food. Wasting food = wasting money. Huge portions. Plates scraped clean. Cheap meat. Limp vegetables. Deep fryers.

I was 12 when I decided to run away. I did not want to be obese, shoeless, unemployed, beaten, pink mewling mouths opening and closing. I concocted a scheme where I studied hard, I left Caboolture for University, and I never ever went back.

Dreams of not worrying about fat or money.

So fucking afraid,
You will always be hungry,
You will be ok.