Day 7: A reason to keep going

December 2007 - 240 pounds

April 2009 - 158 pounds

My before picture horrifies me. It was taken December, 2007. My after/during picture (I'm still not at goal) is from about four months ago, and I'm about that same weight now.

I look at that 240-pound woman and want to cry. She looks so sad. I know the pain she felt, the physical pain and mental anquish of living life at 240 pounds.

Some days I really hate my life. I hate my job, my marriage, my very existence. I try to sound upbeat and cheerful and that life is so grand when I write my blog, but some days, I'm really not feeling it. Some days it just sucks to be me.

My bad day this week was on Tuesday. I argued with my coworkers, including my best work friend. He wouldn't even walk with me at lunch, nor would he talk to me all day. We've since made up, but it was our first "fight" and it hurt. It also included a fight with my husband when I got home and told him about my work day. It was just like everything in my life was wrong. I ended the day with a "controlled" binge, but still a binge.

When I went in to work on Wednesday I had an attitude of "to hell with all of them all". Now keep in mind, I'm the happy-go-lucky girl, never mad at anyone, always apologizing for shit I didn't even do...you know the kind. The fat chick that takes a lot of shit from people because her self-esteem is so incredibly low.

Well, turns out that was the old me. Now I'm a force to be reckoned with. I don't take being mistreated lightly. In fact, if I feel I've been wronged, and I certainly did on Tuesday, I'll stand up for myself. On Wednesday I approached both coworkers, separately, and we discussed what happened on Tuesday. I did NOT apologize. Amazingly, they did and it all worked out.

What's different now is that I don't go apologizing all over the place. I know I'm a worthy person, that I deserve to be treated like one. Treat me badly and I won't put up with it. I won't grovel for your attention or say I'm sorry when you're being the jerk. By losing almost 80 pounds I feel empowered.

There's something about wearing a fatsuit, it was a suit of shame. Like look at me, I suck, I can't even control my eating. Walk all over me because I do it to myself, why shouldn't you too?

That picture of me at 240 pounds is a reason to keep going with losing weight. A bad day then would devastate me, a bad day now is still bad, but I can handle it. I deal with it differently now. I don't want to go back and be that poor, tortured soul. I like me better now. I like life better.