...is apparently what I have been in since my birthday last year. As I am steadily approaching my 30th this year...I have become more aware of all the kinks and knots in my body and that many parts are not working as well as they once did when I was in my early 20s. Seeing that, I have been in denial of my massive weight gain in the past year. I was never a skinny girl and my weight has been up and down for as long as I can remember. Today, I came to the realization that I have gained a total of 15kg in the past year. Do you know how heavy that is for a short girl like me?! I didn't want to admit it...I didn't want to believe it when I had to start buying bigger sizes and I didn't want to see it when I couldn't pull up my favorite pair of jeans past my thighs. I started hiding all the pretty clothes I once wore so they wouldn't remind me of the skinny me, instead I dove into chocolate, cookies, and pizzas and ignore the sciatica pain in my back and the constant sharp pain in my left knee cap, a sure sign that my upper body is now getting too heavy for my lower body. I found these old pics from summer of 2007. I was thin and I don't even recognize the girl in the pictures. I was surprised I looked like that...I don't remember looking like that...Jez said that was the me when we met. And we finally discussed and acknowledged my weight gain. And I think it's finally hit me hard this time...but before I can start doing this, I think I need to look back why it all started in the first place...
Disclaimer: It's 2am in the morning and I'm in the mood to vent so don't read on if you don't want to hear me bitch.
I don't want to play the 'blame my parents' game but I can't help but hold my mother responsible for my obsession with dieting. I was never really worried about my weight till I was 16 and my mother pointed out that 'I could be a little skinnier" because there was no way I was going to grow any taller. It didn't really drill into my head till my first Prom and my mother bought me the most beautiful Prom dress "one size too small' so I'd lose the baby fat to fit into it. I remember that day clearly...I got home from school and when I walked into my bedroom, I saw a beautiful princess gown on a hanger on my door. It was so pretty. A strapless ivory colored dress with hand sewn gold stitches, a low cut in the back with three petite roses cinched at the waist, followed by a long train..it was gorgeous. I carefully took it out of the bag and off the hanger, put one leg in at a time, pulled up the dress and zip...then came to a stop. The dress wouldn't zip all the way up..I was a healthy size 6 then..so I was a bit shocked. I checked the label and it say 'size 4-5'. I went running out of the bedroom screaming 'it doesn't fit!! You got a size 4!!'. My mom looked at me and said...'I know. This should be motivating enough for you to lose a little weight and get into it.' And so that began my life of dieting...I think initially I just took it as a challenge and us Arians do not like to fail! So I Taebo'ed and cut out carbs and low and behold, a month later, I got into the ivory Prom dress...did I care I starved a month for it? Not really...did I care I nearly fainted at my own Prom, not entirely.
The day after, I binged...and binged and binged...it felt good to eat again. Of course, as any chronic dieter will tell you, the weight came piling back on. I might've lost the 5 lbs I needed for the dress but I gained 10 back three months later. Mom was disappointed and said to me, it's okay, you can lose it again and you will lose it again because no one wants a fattie...so I did, then gained, then lost, then gained, and 14 years later I am still doing the same damn thing. What's so sad about this is not once did I lose any of the weight for myself. It was always for someone else; it was always to please someone else; it was always 'no one wants a fattie'.
People always say 'you shouldn't think of it as a diet, you should think of it as a lifestyle' but what if this yo you dieting is a lifestyle, then what? Am I just destined to go through this forever? I can actually map out my mood for the whole year according to what weight I am. Usual pattern: Jan - March: Fat, sad and depressed. April - June: Exercise like a mad woman, hardcore calorie control and blah blah blah = skinny Tiff, happy Tiff, July - August: Slight weight gain because exercise regime is less strict, still skinny, still happy Tiff, Sept - Nov: Somehow easy exercise regime start to be no exercise regime and wake up one morning realize I cannot no longer fit into my jeans, depressed Tiff. Dec - Jan: Holiday season, in denial, telling myself I'll lose weight in the New Year, I always do..still depressed Tiff, then Jan again..and so it continues...
It's been like this for over a decade! My yo yo dieting is a lifestyle but I don't like this lifestyle. I don't actually know how to 'lose weight and keep it off'. I always read these blogs on how people do it and they talk about it how 'simple' it is...it's not simple, it's not easy work, it's a pain in the ass and it's difficult as hell!
Sigh...what brought this on? Well...as it appears this past year, I stopped yo yo dieting. I just got fat. I stopped working out, I started eating late, I started eating anything I wanted and I stopped looking into mirrors. I just gave up, I just didn't care anymore. I told myself, hey, I have a boyfriend, I'm in a relationship, why do I need to try and who do I need to please? I haven't see mom in 3 years, she can't tell me I'm fat. I've stopped talking to her on the phone too much because I want to avoid her asking me if I'm fat and it's not like I'm going back to Taiwan anytime soon so I don't really have the pressure to be skinny. I just simply stopped caring. Besides I just say to myself: I'm not that fat and I can always lose it, if I wanted to.
The hideous truth is...I am that fat (I'm not saying I'm obese but at 5'1'', it is extremely unhealthy for me to be at this current weight) and as I am leaving my 20s behind, I'm not going to lose it as easily as I have done in the past. I want to say I'm going do this and do that, work out 7 days a week and survive on water and celery sticks but that's not going to happen. To be honest, I don't really know what I'm going to do. I think I just really need to get it into my head that I need to do this because I don't want to feel so unhealthy anymore and I don't want to feel pain in my body anymore either. I'm so tired all the time now and I'm so agitated and quick tempered. A far cry from how I used to be when I was doing yoga all the time.
I don't have a solution, yes, eat well and exercise, blah blah blah. I know all the fundamentals, I just can't seem to start...and now I'm up at 2am, nearly 3, with some crappy movie on tv, full of beautiful people, and bitching on an online blog...oh well, at least it's cheaper than therapy. Okay, I'm done bitching.
