I used to weigh in at just under 300lbs. Some days, even though I know that I’m sitting at 175, it still feels like I’m weighing in at just under 300lbs. It’s like there’s a disconnect between my brain and my body — a wire that was properly spliced or like I accidentally opted out of the software update that allowed me to finally feel comfortable in my own skin. So, I’m stuck here waiting for this patch to hopefully find it’s way to me so that it can be installed and freaking out because over the course of ~*the great isolation*~ I’ve put on a whopping ten pounds. And, yes, I am totally aware of just how silly the second half of that sentence sounds.
Honestly, I wish I’d never stepped on the scale this morning. I only did it because a small number of shirts that I own have started to fit a little snugger than I remember and I know that apart from the half an hour I spend walking around my neighborhood after work every day, my physical activity took a catastrophic dip somewhere in May. The idea of working out at home when I hardly had the energy to be a person for the seven and a half hours that I have to be at work seemed ludicrous — so we cut it out completely and opted to eat shit loads of Chex Mix and watch re-runs of RuPaul’s Drag Race and Parks and Recreation to try and distract myself from just how far into the pit of depression I had decided to wander.
I know that the solution to this problem is within reach. It’s barely even a problem really, but it’s something that’s going to weigh on me more than I would admit in person. And yes, the pun was fully intended. I’m going to get a little bit more rigorous with watching what I’m eating again, stop mindlessly snacking just because I’m sad and/or bored, and I’m going to gradually start introducing more exercise back into my life. I’m hoping to see the benefits of this both physically and mentally as we venture through whatever kind of year 2021 is going to be.
I talk about how great I felt for the majority of 2019 a lot in therapy and I think that a lot of it had to with the fact that I was drinking a boatload of water, eating way healthier than I had in years, and was going to the gym four to five times a week after work. I felt like I was on cloud fucking nine. There was an ease and a confidence in everything that I said and did, my self-talk was mostly positive, and I wasn’t quite as concerned with chatter, laughter, or strange looks from the people around me. Circling back to the software analogy, it was almost like I was on a trial run of what Joel 2.0 would look like; but the developers were all laid off in early 2020…so they scrapped everything and reverted back to the original software. Lucky me!
The road that led us there though? Treacherous and twisted with gnarled monsters at every fucking twist and turn. Those simple solutions that I mentioned earlier became these daunting tasks that dictated my every move, so I had to learn how to work them into my life in a healthy way. When I first started this journey, there is no way that I wasn’t walking a fine line into disordered eating. I stressed over every single calorie and would have a panic attack if I wasn’t in a caloric deficit by the end of the day, would weigh and measure each and every meal that I was eating so that I could get the most accurate results in MyFitnessPal, and got a little bit too comfortable of eating really small meals during the day and being hungry so that I could get the bulk of my intake at dinner time. What started as a way to get healthy because of my family history of heart disease turned into this like War of the Worlds style shitstorm in my brain for the majority of 2018.
It was a waking nightmare. Some of the residuals are still lingering around. I have a panic attack every time I go clothes shopping because my brain fully still believes that I am 300lbs and that people will laugh at me for buying, let alone looking at, clothes that are…my actual size. I look in every single mirror that I walk by just to make sure that I’m not actually still as big as I used to be. My Instagram is mostly selfies — which, definitely looks narcissistic, but it’s one of the very few things that shuts up this body dysmorphia demon that is constantly chilling in the back of my brain.
I’m in a slightly better place with it now, but not as good as I could be. As evidenced by a 10lb weight gain starting a change in my daily routine and being the catalyst for this diatribe on my fun times with weight loss and how quickly it can fuck with your brain. Funny enough, this is a pretty good segue into our Basement Show at The Brain Cellar. I don’t have a lot to say about it other than this band got me through a lot in and after High School, I have some of their lyrics tattooed on me forever, and that Ben is easily one of my favorite songwriters of all time. Please enjoy “I’m Losing Weight For You” by the incomparable You, Me, and Everyone We Know.
Until tomorrow.
