Weighty Issues

Nothing makes you vow to kick your exercise routine into high gear quite like your father poking you (hard!) in the stomach and saying (not in a joking manner!) “What is THAT??”

This post is my way of trying to find humor and silliness and maybe (hopefully?) some motivation in something that has upset me more than it probably should.

I really can’t think of very many times in my life that I have not been focused on my weight. I know I don’t garner many sympathetic feelings from anyone when I say that I used to be so thin that I was self-conscious about it. In high school, I had nicknames like “Double-back” (affectionately bestowed upon me by my best friend’s boyfriend because I was as flat on the front as I was on the back), “Bird” (short for Bird legs, given to me by a mean girl on my high school track team during my freshman year), and my favorite, “Rex” (given to me by another mean girl in high school because I was so thin that many of  my classmates thought I was anorexic). Even in college, I was often asked if I was anorexic. When I was younger, I played tennis and was a runner. I didn’t do those things because I was trying to lose weight; I did them because I enjoyed them. I started playing tennis when I was 8 or 9, and I loved it. When I was in high school and college, I played daily when the weather permitted tennis playing. I started running my freshman year of high school only because a friend talked me into joining the track team with her. Funny, I remember hesitating because I hated the way my ridiculously skinny legs with their knobby knees looked in shorts. To say I was awkward back then is a huge understatement.

I wrote a few sentences ago that I know I don’t garner much sympathy when I talk about being self-conscious about being too thin. That’s an understatement as well…I have never gotten ANY commiseration, and instead, would be told things like, “Oh, I’D sure like to have that problem!”  I was told many times throughout high school and college, “Just EAT more!” and, “Why do you play sports when you don’t need to lose weight?” In high school, a guy I liked once threw a hamburger at me at lunch and said “eat up, Twiggy!” while a table full of guys laughed like they were the funniest gift to the world. It was all humiliating and maddening to be honest, and I never understood why it was okay for someone to walk up to a thin skinny person and say, “Oh my GAWD!! You are sooooo skinny! Are you anorexic?”

Again, I know there are many people who would love to be too skinny, but trust me, it is not all it’s cracked up to be. It’s no fun to be a newly minted junior high girl who still looks like an 8 year old in a school full of girls who actually need a bra that is bigger than a training bra and to be drawn in 7^th grade art class as a stick figure. Yes, that really happened.  

I was even told by a doctor after I had been trying to get pregnant for a long time that I was too thin and if I gained some weight, I would probably get pregnant. I spent a few months eating ice cream, peanut butter right out of the jar, and the most high calorie foods I could find. Yeah, who is going to feel sorry for someone like THAT, right?

I don’t expect anyone to “feel sorry” for me. Not at all. I only say all of that to make the point that I have always been self-conscious and not had a very good body image. Honestly, the first time in my life I remember really feeling good about how I looked is when I was pregnant with Brandon. I’m an odd ball, I know. Most people hate the way they look when they are pregnant, but I loved it.

Don’t hate me.

The good feelings about my body continued even after I gave birth. I lost most of the weight I had gained, but not all of it, and as anyone who has given birth knows, your body changes in many different ways. I felt “curvier” even though I was still thin, and I felt wonderful. Friends and family members told me I looked “good with a little meat on my bones.” Even after I had Justin and Lauren and all of the weight didn’t come off and I wore a larger size in clothing than I ever had before, I still felt pretty darn good. Strangely enough, after I had kids was when I felt comfortable in a bathing suit for the first time since my pre-pubescent days. I would look at pictures of myself and think, “Wow, I look pretty good for having had 3 kids!”

Then, I had Rachel, and my body image shifted to the other end of the spectrum. After I had her, the weight did not come off. She was born in June, and not able to bear the thought of wearing maternity clothes all summer yet not able to fit into my regular clothes, I bought clothes cheap, that fit, that I assumed I would only wear that summer. I bought a pair of khaki shorts in the men’s department at Target and laughed with my friends about how I would burn them when I lost weight.

Ha.

By the next summer, those clothes still fit me, even those men’s shorts from Target. By the next summer, when Rachel was two, they didn’t.

They were too small.

Whoa, how did THAT happen, I wondered? For the first time in my life, I was gaining weight when I wasn’t pregnant and I wasn’t trying. And most people in my life who had known me for a long time thought it was funny, said it was “payback” time, welcome to the real world, it’s about time you gain weight, etc etc yada yada yada.

For a while, it didn’t bother me a whole lot, I still looked pretty good, I thought. I am tall so I “hid” it well, and I felt healthy. I tried not to let a few extra pounds bother me and told myself it was part of getting older. And even though I weighed more than I ever had, I knew that I looked better and felt better about myself than I had looked and felt when I was super duper skinny.

Now, 15 years after Rachel came into the world, and a couple of years post-menopause, the weight has steadily settled itself like an unwanted guest around my midsection, and the past few years, I have once again began to feel self-conscious about how I look. I hate shopping for clothes because I often feel like I look pregnant. I have started to despise photos of myself because I look even heavier in pictures.

I eat well…I cook mostly from scratch, I eat very little pasta, rice, potatoes and bread. I eat lots of veggies. I don’t drink soda at all. I rarely make something to eat that comes out of a box or a package. I walk/run, although not as regularly as I should. When I run into someone I haven’t seen in years, I imagine them thinking, “Wow, she has really packed on the pounds!” And I have, I know it.  When I run into someone who knew me in high school, I imagine them snickering and secretly being thrilled that I am no longer the skinny mini I used to be. When my old high school friend I hadn’t seen in 4 years came to a gathering I had this summer and announced in front of a kitchen and family room full of people, “Hey, this is great! I am FINALLY skinnier than Rose! I’ve been looking forward to this for YEARS!” I know she meant no harm. I know she was trying to be funny, and I laughed along with her, but I wanted to crawl into a hole.

That should have motivated me to do something, but it didn’t, and I have felt even more self-conscious since that day. Even more aware of what I eat, what I do, what I wear…

But DID I do anything about it? No, I did not.

This weekend was a big family reunion with all of my Keiffer relatives. I have been so excited thinking about seeing cousins who I haven’t seen in many years (one of them, I haven’t seen for 14 years!), and I shamefully admit, I was nervous in some ways, wondering what they would think of skinny little Toddie who is no longer skinny. I am the oldest of all of my cousins, and while some of the guys are close to me in age, all of the girls are at least 9 years younger than me; some of them are much younger than that. Which means they haven’t yet hit that age where it is hard to lose weight and easy to gain it. One of them is pregnant with her first baby and one just had a baby a few months ago, but otherwise, they are all still slim and trim, even after having kids.

I can honestly say that while I worried and wondered ahead of time about seeing all of them, I really believe that there are so many more important things in life to worry about. Weight Schmeight.  Who cares. We all had so much fun catching up. It was a great day.

Then, my parents were leaving, and I gave my dad a hug goodbye. That is when he looked at me, poked his finger in my stomach, and said, “What is THAT?” He didn’t say it in a joking manner. Not even close. He said it with a tone of complete disgust. I was shocked. I just looked at him and said, “Yeah, I’m old and FAT, thank you so much for pointing that out!” and I walked away.

I can’t help but wonder how long he has looked at me and thought, “Wow, she has really gotten fat!” Worse, the way my parents talk about everyone, even their granddaughter who is overweight, I wonder who he has told about how fat his once skinny daughter has become.

Maybe it’s a good thing he said what he did. I can’t get his words out of my head. Maybe his nasty words will inspire me to try harder to get in better shape, to walk and run and exercise on a more regular basis.

I just don’t understand why he thinks it is ok to say the things he says. Way to go, Dad…you sure are good at hitting it out of the park when it comes to making someone feel like shit.

 But, I’d rather have his words inspire me to try harder to lose weight than to inspire me to punch him in the face.

That said, I am being brave and posting a couple of current pictures of myself. Maybe doing so will really inspire me to look forward to posting a much better “after” picture at some point.

 

 I swear, I really am not orange like I look in these pictures. And, I probably should ask my girls for pointers on taking “selfies” because these suck. I think I took 20 different shots just to get these two that are semi-ok.

 

Over and out to the grocery store to stock up on veggies...