Perspective

Today I had a Pampered Chef show and there were three other people there besides me when I got there 30 minutes early to set up.  They all started talking about weight loss and I of course was very interested in what they had to say.  Mostly I was interested because two of the women were saying that they weighed 162-168 and they were trying to get down another 10 pounds.  I was curious what their height was because when I looked at them they looked really good to me and while it wasn't surprising to me that they were wanting to lose weight (I think almost every single woman in America is conscious about their weight and probably wants to drop a few pounds) I was surprised to learn that they are my exact height: 5'4".  In that moment my whole perspective changed.  Here I am, ten pounds lighter than them and thinking I look terrible.  For the first time I could almost see myself from the outside looking in, instead of the inside looking out.  I didn't think that those women looked fat, I thought they looked pretty normal, but they were 10 pounds heavier than I am and we are the same height.  That must mean that I look pretty good too, even though I am not where I would ultimately like to be.  Since I didn't look at those women and think "wow they are fat and need to lose weight" people probably don't look at me and think "wow, she is fat and needs to lose weight".  I realize now I've been holding onto my fat identity.  I still see myself as the fat girl, the fattest one in the family (which in all honesty... I still am the heaviest one in my family).  It was nice today because I was visiting a host who had a party for me two years ago, right before Chloe was born.  And they haven't seen me since, so to be reminded of how far I have come felt really good.

Today was very eye opening and I have taken some huge steps on the road to self acceptance, and to changing my identity so that I no longer identify myself as the lazy, food driven, obese person I once was.  I have changed, I don't need to go back to my old self, I am not my old self.  I can start to see myself in a new light, and I feel like for the first time I am truly on the path to finding peace. 

I occurred to me the other day that I haven't posted a picture of myself on my blog in a very long time.  Probably because I have been ashamed of the weight I gained over the last several months, so here I am, with all my challenges, all my bumps in the road, not perfect, but still willing to try to figure this out.