The Fatslayer Chronicles

Today's Fatslaying Workout 70 minute brisk walk (yesterday); nothing today because I've got a bitch of a toothache!

Today's Weight 199.0 lbs

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Yay, 199lbs! I'd better celebrate quickly before the darn scale bounces me back into the 200s.

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I realised today that weight loss is not some kind of panacea.

 

By the time I get to goal I’ll have lost around 100lbs, which means I’ll have lost 40-50% of my starting body weight. That’ll be pretty damn good for my health, but it doesn’t automatically mean that I’ll suddenly turn into some foxy chick that feels sexy and gorgeous. I don’t think it works that way.

 

All my life I’ve felt unattractive. Not run-for-the-hills ugly, but definitely, indisputably plain.

 

Of course this could have something to do with the fact that my mom is not one to pull her punches and she always told me to my face that I was ugly. This sounds pretty bad, I guess, but in mom’s defence she would argue that this constituted ‘tough love’ and was designed to make me get my act together and lose the blubber.  She would tell me to lose weight because the neighbours would think I was a lesbian, and she was forever telling me that I’d never get a boyfriend. She was ashamed of me and my sisters for being fat, and she wasn’t afraid to let us know it.

 

Now in case you think I’m wallowing in self-pity here, I’m really not. I’ve come a long way from being that cripplingly shy little girl who thought she was an eyesore, and hey, I’ve had my share of boyfriends and rolls in the hay, so I can see that mom was way wrong on the lesbian-no-boyfriend score.

 

I’ve even felt pretty damn sexy from time to time, I’ll have you know, and even been told I was sexy by a few guys which was pretty good for the ego – but I’ve never had a single minute when I’ve felt beautiful (or even pretty), and I’m beginning to realise that no amount of weight-loss is ever going to change that.

 

I went out and bought Grazia magazine the other day, because there was an article on Dietgirl in it. There she was in all her inspirational glory, looking slim and confident and damn bloody gorgeous! And guess what – she writes a blog entry the following day about how she still feels insecure and unworthy and unattractive. Yep, this lovely, funny, intelligent woman doubts the fact that she’s beautiful!

 

Now, I’d like to think that it’s just fat paranoia that’s making me overlook my own beauty, but sadly it just ain’t true. Unlike Dietgirl, I’ve never been told by any boyfriend that I’m beautiful – and if I’m not beautiful in the eyes of the men who have loved me, patently I’m not beautiful, period.

 

You would think that as an intelligent forty year old woman, this wouldn’t bother me, but – fuck! – it sadly does. Am I really that shallow? Heh, I guess so!

 

I think it’s because I’m realising that I can change some things about myself – the size of my bum and the Buddha belly – but fundamentally I can’t change me.

 

And by me, I mean I can’t transform myself from being shy and plain and unselfconfident and insecure and unfeminine just by losing a few pounds – or even a hundred. Weight-loss will only get you so far…it doesn’t cure everything!