REVERSE ANOREXIA

There are thousands of women who everyday look in the mirror and say to themselves, "God, am I fat!"  Often they are a "normal" size and some are even too thin, yet they throw up their dinner for fear of gaining a pound.  For me, being overweight has always been a different experience.  I have a unique problem.  It is a different kind of visual perception problem than what most girls experience.  I call it, Reverse Anorexia.

I have never looked in the mirror and hated myself.  I have never felt encumbered by my weight.  I have always been able to out maneuver any thin girl that I know.  Generally, I am fast, energetic, and on the move.  I am none of the things that ignorant people associate with larger individuals.  I am not slow.  I am not lazy.  I am not smelly.  I am not a slob.  Perhaps these perceptions are what motivates me to set such an example at the gym.  All I know is I have friends who are in much better health, but struggle to keep up with me.

When you are not a person who takes the easy way out (let's face it, if that were me I would have had bypass surgery and been done with this by now) it is hard to understand that you are failing by societal standards.  It is hard to rap your brain around the fact that you, this hardworking individual with high standards, is in fact, a big fat blimp!

I honestly don't know how I've missed it.  There are days I don't know how I got here.  I feel crazy sometimes.  I see the number on the scale.  I see the number on the tag inside my jeans.  I know how I'm regarded by others.  FAT! Yet, I don't truly have a sense of my weight until I see a photograph of myself. Some days it is really hard to reconcile.  I get rather angry and feel that I don't deserve this burden.  I'm a person who'd rather run than walk, yet here I am stuck at 265 pounds as if I've never left the sofa a day in my life!  There are people eating way more than me who have never hustled a day in their lives and they get to lead a normal life.  Dr. Phil would say, "but that ain't YOU...!"  So why waste energy thinking about it.

I don't bother asking God why anymore.  I know there is a lesson and purpose in all of this.  There are just days when it is hard to see.  There are days where I don't even realize it's as big a problem as it is, until I'm confronted head on with a limitation like fitting into a pair of jeans, squeezing into an amusement park ride, or having someone send that signal of disapproval about my size.

I wouldn't trade places with the girl who throws up her dinner, but I wouldn't mind borrowing her eye glasses once in awhile.  It is pretty challenging when you don't see what others see.  It's not like I don't realize I'm overweight. Maybe I'm just not into self loathing the way that society has taught us; I might have skipped that class.  But, I had no idea I was this fat until I saw a recent picture of myself.  Holy sh*t.  I was floored.  I can not believe that all that mass is my own!

Does anyone else out there have the same problem??  Does anybody else have Reverse Anorexia???!  Please tell me I'm not alone!  If the woman staring back at me in the mirror looked anything like the woman in the photo below, I would have conquered this demon a long time ago!

This is the picture that put me over the edge.  Maybe I should have skipped the fries at the ballpark that day (shaking my head).  

This is AFTER I've lost twenty-five pounds?!?!  Wow! Unbelievable!

"We turn skeletons into goddesses and look to them as if they might teach us how not to need." -Marya Hornbacher