A Prayer

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, 

The courage to change the things I can,
And wisdom to know the difference.

Some days prayer is the one thing that keeps us hanging in there. This prayer often feels appropriated on those days. 

"Let Your Soul Delight"

I know it has been pretty heavy here recently (emotionally, people, not physically--although that could apply as well. :) ). I can't promise it is going to be all light-hearted or funny now but I wanted a little break today from pulling out my soul, putting it on the rack and turning the cranks to stretch it out.

This scripture came to mind from the Book of Mormon 2 Nephi 9:51 where we learn about the plan of salvation from the prophet Jacob.

Wherefore, do not spend money for that which is of no worth, nor your labor for that which cannot satisfy. Hearken diligently unto me, and remember the words which I have spoken; and come unto the Holy One of Israel, and feast upon that which perisheth not, neither can be corrupted, and let your soul delight in fatness. 

I think the Lord has a sense of humor. I know the reference here is to feasting on the gospel truth and bathing in its light but I can't help but to take the phrase "let your soul delight in fatness" just a bit more literally. That I can delight in this journey that I have been given and that there is power that will come to me by opening myself up to the gratitude and joy that have come my way from my fatness.

A few years ago, my mind radically changed regarding correct nutrition principles and one that stood out to me was that fat was good. Ingesting good sources of fat were especially important to raise my hormone levels and increase my body's fat-burning capacity. It felt like a revelation. You mean all this time I have been scraping and slaving and refusing any kind of fat and all along that is part of what was damaging my body? And making it so very hard to lose weight?

I had a palate newly born. I started to revel in good sources of fat: fish, coconut milk, coconut oil, olive oil, avocados, nuts & nut butters and animal fats like butter, lard, tallow and bacon. Immediately my hunger levels decreased and my satiation levels went up. I could do this--eat good foods--if fat was a part of the picture. Fat turns food into savory, delightful, rich, succulent dishes. And fat was born to be paired with vegetables: roasted asparagus doused with butter, sweet potatoes cooked in coconut oil, roasted broccoli dressed with olive oil, brussel sprouts sauteed with bacon. Vegetables turn into must-have foods when paired with a delicious fat. 

So, on a basic level, I learned to "delight in fatness." On another level, how do I delight in my own journey through fatness? My friend Sarah said this eloquently in a recent comment:

One brighter side to sheltering the true self in a bigger body is that it does actually create a safe haven for those who need someone they know won't judge them. There have been times when I have prayed in gratitude that people feel comfortable with me--not in spite of my physical weaknesses, but because of them! One woman in my ward confided in me about some of her deepest fears and insecurities and then leaned in and whispered lovingly, "I get so intimidated by all of the beautiful, perfect women in our ward. . . but I don't feel that way with you!" Of course she meant it as a compliment and I took it that way! (And of course I laughed and laughed until there were tears of joy and irony cascading down my chubby, non-threatening cheeks!!) I LOVE my comfortable packaging invites others to be comfortable with me!!! What an unexpected and appreciated perk it has come to be as I have learned to SEE it! 

Yes, there are perks. The ability to be less threatening, more approachable, a repository for other's secrets and fears, the ability to truly engulf people in love and warmth, and the chance to develop empathy for other's challenges. I think my gratitude muscle needs to be worked out a bit more consistently on this front. I want it to be worked out more to balance out and engulf the pain of this challenge that I too often wallow in.

I am a work in progress. And today part of that work is learning to delight. I like that kind of work.

Status Update for March 23rd

Week 6, Round 2

Weight: 289.2

Loss this week: +8 pounds

Loss in 6 weeks: -16.8 pounds

Total weight loss: 53.3 pounds

Like I said--sugar is not my friend. I have not eaten gluten or dairy or even grains this last week, but I did make treats several times for different reasons and I indulged. And thus my weight gain. I don't have a clear head about all of this, only that I don't want this to be the beginning of a long, slow slide backwards. I am hoping that this week will bring the course correction that I need.

Sugar, Sugar, Sweet

When I started 2013, I vowed to give up sugar for the year. And let me clarify--I said I would give up white, refined, processed sugar. I decided honey was fine and also coconut sugar and maple syrup. I was interested in staying away from the really potent stuff. I figured honey and coconut sugar would be used rarely enough that they wouldn't be a big deal.

And it worked--for a little while. Mostly as long as I stayed away from honey and coconut sugar too. Let's just say I love sugar (any kind of sugar) but guess what? It doesn't love me quite so much. Or at all. Ever.

Giving up gluten and giving up dairy was easier than this. I can go without sugar for weeks or months at a time but the minute I have treats again? I am right back in the middle of my sugar love. I want it, I want it all the time, and I want in large quantities.

I know that lots of people have a hard time with sugar. What I wish was I didn't blow up to a ginormous size because of it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know some people feel awful when they eat it, some people get headaches, some people get sick. I feel terrible for all of them. But in my myopic perspective, all of that pales in comparison to gaining weight because of sugar.

I can't place the blame only on sugar, I know. It just seems to have the tightest grip on me. And truly, I don't want to go through life without eating cake, having a brownie or making a pie. Remember, I am so not good at suffering. But really what I mean is that I want to participate in feating and celebration and sharing food. We have cake at birthdays, brownies at parties, pie during the holidays. I don't want to miss out. One of the worst parts of my fattyhood? Feeling alone, feeling different and feeling isolated. When I have to eat so differently from everyone else around me it makes me feel even more alone and more isolated. More strange than I already do, every day.

Aaaaaggggh! I promised to be honest for these 30 days. I promised myself I would be open and vulnerable. I've never talked about this stuff in this way before. But just because I am not holding back doesn't mean I am sure that laying it all out there makes it feel any better. More than once I have wished it wasn't my story to tell.

For Shame

Shame seems to be on my mind right now and in my writing. This lyrical prose is my attempt to address shame's influence on me. 

You are the prickly pear companion of my youth. You are the one I have held so close to me on hollow nights and gray mornings. You’ve been allowed access to the hidden corners of my soul, the tender places, the soft underbelly. And you have embedded yourself deep in my heart, willing me to stay away, out of the light—alone, afraid, embarrassed, angry, worthless and unhappy. You are my dark companion. 

In your eyes, I am a fool. You make me cringe daily at my weakness, my incompetence, my mistakes, my humanity. And I have let you in, welcomed you with open arms, hugged you tight to my chest and been surprised that over and over and over again your pricks sting, fester and poison what is good and lovely inside my soul. You hurt me. And I let you—again and again and again. 

Each day you tell me a story that is my whispered secret: I am not enough. That is your siren song, your dark delight. And with those words you bludgeon me into submission. I cower in fear that this may be truth. I hold you and your secret tight to me. Hide it, keep it safe. Do not let the world know. 

But I have harbored you for so long. My soul is wasted by your chains and terrorized from your torture. My heart grown weary from your harsh slavery and the fetid stench of your power. You, dark friend, have shut out light and goodness, halted compassion and forgiveness, and made war at the very root of my truth. 

This is our goodbye. You are not welcome here any longer. This is not your home and I am not your people. Your violence and greed may not be planted in my soul’s fortune any longer. Your words may not echo in the chambers of my heart. I want you out. Forever. Your stay here may have been long but it is now over and you may not darken my door again. For your ways are not my ways and my God is not yours. 

Take with you your companion characteristics--doubt, fear, anger, embarrassment, hopelessness, worthlessness, isolation and depression. They do not thrive without you and I am doing a full house cleaning. I refuse to shelter them any longer as well. They want to be with you. You are all so tightly wound, so powerfully compacted to fit neatly into the tiniest crack in any defense. I am not safe where any of you linger and I will not hold to you any longer. You are not my treasure. 

I have a work to do here and it time to air out my soul and let the light in. 

This Birth

My friend Amy wrote a response to my post Truth Telling. She articulated so clearly what I wanted to that I asked her if I could share her writings here. Amy has four children and six months ago I was lucky enough to be able to attend the home water birth of her fourth child. Natural birth has long been a discussion topic between us so that experience and Amy's words here are very fitting. 

After I read your entry my first thought was . . . her experience is like giving birth!

Some women look forward to it and some don't. Some submit to it and find the pain to be tolerable and worth it, some don't.  Some choose to numb their experience. Some choose a caesarean . . . you chose over and over a "natural birth" into the new you!

You have experienced a LONG pregnancy. You are now in labor. You are a wise woman who set up your birth scene with doulas and other supportive people with knowledge and love. You are almost there . . . perhaps you are entering transition.

Transition is the time during birth when women feel the most vulnerable and the most scared and the most like giving up.  You began to transition years ago but unlike giving birth you had the choice of slowing down your birth process and returning to the labor stage. You even felt the necessity to consider caesarean over and over.  Now, after already deciding that transition is an important part of your birth plan, you are surrendering to the experience.

Transition is a time during birth that naturally demands an inward focus unmatched by any other experience I've known . . . a time when all other distractions lose their pull.  It is not a time to worry about how to raise our children or whether or not we even want to be a mother after all! But it can be a time when we women are tempted to panic, "lose control," shout obscenities, etc. Sometimes we even find our minds thinking that death is around the corner but in actuality the fear is not the giving up of our bodies and leaving the physical realm but rather staying in our bodies and enduring the unfamiliar and uncomfortable physical sensations that are part of bringing or allowing forth a new life.  Amidst the grip of the most intense physical experience most of us women ever have, there is space inside our hearts to know with peaceful assurance that the end of labor pain is near. Somewhere in our "zone" we can feel and know that God is the designer of this beautiful and awe-inspiring process of change.

Transition is the shortest part of the birth process but the part that requires the internal allowance that speaks "Thy will be done."

Even though it happens relatively fast, time seems to stand still during transition. I'd like to think there is divine purpose in this. Almost as if we are given opportunity to anticipate with utter reverence the magnitude of what it happening (even if that means being in a little bit of shock). We get to "be still" and prepare to greet the new life we are about to hold.

As your friend,  I watch you entering transition and feel happy for you.  And the analogy goes on and on. We never know what  our babies are going to look like or how fast we will learn to love them.  But we always do learn to love them and we adjust quickly to their appearance and enjoy them as much as we can.

So, knowing that you made a thorough "birth plan," I hope that your "birth story" becomes an empowerment to you and your future. And that it strengthens your sense of identity and courage to make all of your other important dreams come true.

Because surely marriage, career shifting and children will give you plenty of new life to focus on when this "pregnancy" is over!

My Drug

I think that this simple video from 1987 demonstrating your brain on drugs is great. It is clear, concise and the imagery embeds itself in your head.




My drug is sugar. It does the very same thing to my brain.

This article from the Huffington Post reminded me of this point today:

"Psychodiabetes: Sugar on the Brain"

I still struggle with this lesson every day. More on that to come.

I Never Wanted This

I am so not good at martyrdom. Or bearing challenges with silent stoicism. Or going quietly into the dark night.

I've never been peaceful about being fat. I've resented it from day one. I've felt uncomfortable in my own skin, unhappy that this was my challenge and so mad that I did not get the life I was supposed to have.

That may sound a bit ridiculous but I have often felt like I am living a parallel life to the "real" one I am supposed to be living. The one where I am not compromised by this burden and hidden under these layers. My family, my friends, my location, my beliefs are all the same--I am just different in this parallel life. I am my best self there. I wasn't the fat teenager there who hung back, insecure and angry. I was editor of the school newspaper, on the basketball team, lead in the school play, and in the show choir--my talents were not blanketed by my weight. In college, I was pretty and popular, dating lots of boys and doing well in school because I was confident and strong and not mortified to walk out the door each morning to face the world. I went on study abroad and was on the ballroom team and utilized my gifts rather than shroud them under my weight. My LDS mission would have been the same, only this time, I would have discovered a little sooner my strengths in teaching because I wasn't so hampered by my ever-present concern with losing weight.

During post-mission life I would have graduated, maybe started that first job but been dating up a storm and quickly found someone to share my life with rather than hanging back continually out of fear that I was just too ugly for any man to ever see beyond the layers of chub down to the best parts of my soul. Then these last ten years could have been spent just how they were meant to be spent in building a marriage, having babies, raising a family and growing as a writer and dreamer and not constantly pinned down by this great, overwhelming obstacle called "obesity."

In my parallel life I am the same--I have weaknesses and strengths and peculiarities and personality but it isn't compromised or filtered or diluted or even enhanced because I am fat. I am just "me." Being fat has never felt like me. It has never felt "right." Does any challenge ever? I don't know. I just know that this has felt uncomfortable and pinched and unsettled on my soul for as long as I can recall. And it still does to this day. I do not feel right here. And as my "real" life continues in parallel to this life, my two worlds move further and further apart and one day I will be fractured between them if I do not either reconcile myself to this existence, learn how to merge them together or let go of one of them entirely.

Mostly, I want peace. And I want to be comfortable in my skin AND in my life.

Truth Telling

I am not going to be very good at editing myself here on this blog. I've done that for a long, long time when it comes to obesity, weight loss and the reality of chubbiness. I've glossed over it, ignored it, resented it and avoided the subject entirely. My goal in writing on this blog for 30 days has been to tell my story with all the truth I can muster. Sometimes, just getting it out there helps me to see it more clearly. But sometimes it just scares me to pieces.

This week has been a week of highs and lows. Mostly I have been eating too much and feeling all over the place--excitement, happiness, bliss, freedom, strength, power and truth. All of that feeling makes me  scared. Scared that this is all going in the right direction. Where I want it to go--out of fattyhood. I don't know why that scares me so much because it is what I have always wanted more than anything. But every time I get scared, I eat.

So there has been a lot of eating.

It sounds ridiculous, doesn't it? Success scares you? My gosh, what will I have to work on if this thing is not hanging over me all the time? What will I be able to blame all of my unhappiness on? What will be my go-to excuse for not doing something? For not wanting to go somewhere? For feeling bad about myself? For doing poorly on a project? For not reaching my goals? My favorite crutch will be gone. I keep wanting it to be gone but staring that possibility in the face makes me realize that as much as I want it gone, I've grown very accustomed to its presence and that means the comfort of it will be gone. Success is scary because it takes me out of my comfort zone.

I remember one time when I was about twenty-two, I had been steadily losing weight for months. I was starting to look different than I ever had. I was so looking forward to putting the "weight thing" in my rearview mirror and never dealing with it again. I was so ready to be out chubbiness and into "real life." One morning after praying, I had the distinct impression that this thing was not going away permanently; that I had more to learn from this process and so things were not going to change as quickly as I thought they would. I had no idea. No idea that I would spend the next 15 years dealing with this thing. Not a clue.

What stays with you grows comfortable eventually because it is what you know. I am willing to be uncomfortable for a while, in order to know new ways. I am willing to be scared.

My bet is once I get on the other side of the discomfort, I might like this new way of doing life.

Status Update for March 16th

Week 5, Round 2

Weight: 281.2 pounds

Loss this week: -1.1 pounds

Loss in 5 weeks: 24.8 pounds

Total loss: 61.3 pounds

Kind of a tough week. The scale bounced up a pound and then down. Then up and then down. I was hoping to get into the 270s this week. Looking forward to that milestone in the next few days.