I feel it in my gut (not to mention my butt), this is my tale about my fight with the scale.
I, Molly, was a fat kid. I have no qualms with admitting to this or showing pictures (not here, not now) of my Jolly Molly roundness. The largest I remember being was high 100’s wearing a size 20 at 5’2. No, not while pregnant, while in the 8th grade. As you can imagine this was not easy especially for a girl who already had nappy bangs from ear to ear (thanks mom). But I don’t have a horror story of being picked on, not that I can remember anyways. Unlike many children of the latest generation I adjusted my personality to my reality, not the other way around. I did not try to be a pretty girl, I was a funny girl. I did not try to be a popular girl, I was the nice girl. I did not try to be a cheerleader, I was in band. I by no means was perfect… I was obnoxious, loud and lacked a filter from my brain to mouth (guilty of all three to this day). I had a great family support system, friends and lived in a forgiving (albeit small) town.
The only thing this childhood experience has left me with is: The Fat Girl Complex
Defined by me as: “The constant nagging feeling in the back of the mind that you can be smaller and are larger than everyone around you”. To this day you will not catch me in tight clothing (not comfortably anyways) and will often (ok, ok darn near ALL THE TIME) hear me talking about losing weight or needing to lose weight. The only difference between my struggle and most mothers’ struggles is mine didn’t begin post baby (no, that was the decline of my bust), my struggle began in my early childhood.
In my early years of High School I learned quite a bit about myself, but the key thing I learned was what was good for my body and what wasn’t. While others were eating junk with little to no consequence to their waist lines I was learning and implementing what was necessary for me to reach and eventually maintain a healthy weight. By my Junior year I was half the size I had been in Jr. High. That was not easy and Lord knows my weight and size differed day to day. Struggle then. Struggle now.
Am I the largest lady you will see in Wal-Mart Sunday after church? No ma’am! Am I the fittest thing you will find on Facebook? No sir! I fall right in between. After giving birth to two children (I’m not getting into THAT weight gain), being happily married and knocking on 30’s door I continue to teeter from one end of the scale to the other. What has changed is my attitude. I have my days where I carefully count every calorie, gram of sugar and percentage of sodium that crosses my lips and then I have days where I mentally decide “SCREW IT! I am eating this ENTIRE bag of tortilla chips!!!” I have days that I get up before the crack of dawn and hit the gym and then I have days where I sleep until the last allowable second.
My weight fluctuates. For example-
Christmas 2011: Thick thighs and a tire around my mid-section that could have saved Leonard DiCaprio on the Titanic.
What is my way to weigh? Diet and discipline until a goal is met. Live life for a few months. Return to diet.
Disclaimer: Yes, this can be classified as Yo-Yo dieting, but allow me to assure you that at 5’7 I remain in a healthy weight range. Now, return to your carrot sticks.
