You know I get some really great comments and sometimes they really strike a cord within me. Today I got a great comment from Susan:

Susan’s comment regarding post “#92 – Fat Acceptance Organizations“

… as for your advice about moving on, I’m going through a tough period myself at the moment and your words came at exactly the right time. Many people in your situation would have (re)turned to food for comfort – but you haven’t! I admire you so much for that.

You are so right Susan. It’s so easy to turn back to food to comfort us in times of need. But that is part of overcoming fatness – learning to find other ways to cope with life’s hurdles that don’t include food. I suppose a few years ago I would have made myself feel better with a box of Chips Ahoy, but now I find other ways. Of course, blogging helps. I’m a firm believer in talking out your problems. If you don’t have someone in your life you can confide in and discuss all the crap life has thrown you, write a blog or journal. Even talking things out to yourself really helps. Hehe, honestly I can’t tell you how many times I’ve worked things out in my head by myself… yes that means I do talk to myself. But what the hell, it’s healthy, isn’t it? Just get it out. Really it’s about distraction. Find an outlet for release. For me it’s talking and journaling, some like exercise (yeah just what I’m thinking too… yeah right… not for me), some watch TV, play the computer, talk on the phone, whatever… just know that eating isn’t going to make your problems go away… it’s not going to make you feel better… actually it will make you feel worse from the added guilt.

I think too many of us have bottled up life’s problems and try to keep stuffing the feelings down by stuffing our faces. It really doesn’t help. Sure, maybe for a half hour or hour after downing a bunch of junk food you feel fantastic. The seretonin (feel good neurotransmitter in the brain) rush you get from consuming massive quantities of carbs will temporarily take away the pain… I can’t stress enough… temporarily! Then you start to come off your sugar high and crash and feel like crap all over again. How many of us have lived this over and over again? Feel bad, eat something to feel better, feel awesome for a bit, crash, feel bad, eat something to feel better, la la la la la. Over and over again, I lived this cycle, til finally it occurred to me it wasn’t working. The food really wasn’t making me feel ANY better.

So yes, I’ve had a really rough past few months. Did I turn to food ever? Sure, I’m human. But I never let it go too far. I don’t let a little slip up, crumble all of my progress to the ground. With eating right, I NEVER tell myself I CAN’T have something… I’m like a rebellious kid… tell me I can’t and of course that’s all I want. So I let myself have whatever I want in moderation. And no, a whole bag of cookies is NOT moderation. But sure, I have to admit sometimes when I’ve been down and wanted a wee pick me up, I did turn to food. I’ll tell you though, it’s really hard not to fall into old habits. But I keep telling myself… Food will not take away the pain… EVER! And then I find something else to do, I move on, and I cope, sans food. And through all of this I have not gained weight… ok not entirely true… I went up five pounds… then right back down so I’m right where I was before all this. Actually I hopped on the scale yesterday and saw a number I hadn’t seen in years… 249. So actually through all this I lost a pound. Ok maybe by some people’s standards losing 1 pound in the past 8 months is terrible progress, well poo poo on you! Frankly I’m proud of the fact that I’ve just been able to maintain through all of this, and now I’m starting to lose again. I never set out on this journey thinking I was in a race. I never set a deadline for weight loss. I set a goal to lose and maintain… two things I’ve consistently done. For that I am proud.

So yes Susan, it’s hard not to fall in our old patterns of coping during the rough stuff, but we need to make the choice. Life can be hard, painful, and sad. We just need to remind ourselves that there is something better out there for us. We won’t always hurt, we won’t always cry, we won’t always struggle. I’m always telling myself, “what doesn’t kill you, only makes you stronger.” By now, with what life has thrown at me, I think I’m one tough broad. Life isn’t all peaches and cream (no, that isn’t a subliminal food message lol). There is only one person that can make you happy, and that is you. It’s your choice. Happiness? Depression? You pick. But know, never ever will food help you in your quest for happiness.

Read the last ~*~ Mail Bag ~*~ post

I know I’m always talking about having confidence. I think that is one of the most important things in weight loss, well life in general really. I think you need to really learn to love and accept yourself before you can make the kind of commitment needed to get yourself healthy. I mean, if you don’t give a crap about yourself, why would you work so hard to improve your body? You wouldn’t. And that’s why there are so many sad, depressed, overweight people in the world. If you don’t care, you don’t try. It’s easier to cope with life by filling whatever void you have with an endless supply of Tontino’s Party Pizzas (yes I was once there). So feeling good mentally really is just as important as getting your body healthy. You can’t have one without the other. I’ve talked about this time and time again, but I think it’s a really important message that I can’t stress enough.

On the other hand… I think some take their confidence a bit too far. I’m SURE I’m gonna get flack for what I’m about to say, but hey, if I think it, I gotta write it. I think a fat woman that can love herself is a very beautiful thing, but I think some women take it way to far. Have you heard of these Goddess organizations? Basically women that absolutely LOVE being fat. They have come to terms with the weight and have completely accepted it. They love their bodies and see no reason they should change. They have parties and special clubs for BBWs (Big Beautiful Women) and their admirers. While I applaud them for their self confidence, I just can’t condone accepting your fat so much that you don’t feel it’s necessary to lose weight. I’m sorry but never will being 100+ pounds overweight be healthy. I don’t care how much you exercise, you are still putting a huge strain on your heart, your endocrine system (your metabolic system basically) and your joints. The facts are the facts… fat people die a premature death due to complications from obesity related illnesses.

I read an interesting article on years of life lost due to obesity (Fontaine et al. 2003. JAMA 289:187-193). They give you some facts about the impact of obesity on our lives. If you are a 20-39 years old with a BMI 45 or over (imagine 5′6″ and more than 280 pounds), you could lose as many as 12 years off your life just because you are fat. That’s sad. Say you’re 35, if your life expectancy is 80 (just guessing… like we ever really know) that would mean you have another 45 years of life left. If you lose 12 years, that’s like losing almost 27% of your remaining life! I don’t know about you, but I’d like to live those years. Is that Tontino’s pizza really worth 27% of the rest of your life? Ok I digress…

Back to the topic… There is something else that really bugs me about these Goddess clubs and parties… it’s the BBW admirers. I don’t know why this bothers me so much. I suppose it’s because I’ve always wanted men to love me for me and not my body. Seriously, what kind of relationship are you going to have with a man that only likes your body? Well, I’m sure it will be a physical one, but don’t you want more? And men that go out of their way to exclusively date obese women? Hmmm… always sounded like some kind of fetish to me. I think it’s fine to say, “I don’t care if you’re fat or thin or whatever, I’ll just love you for you”. But to only want fat chicks? Why? I’ve wondered if they were the kind of men with low self-esteems themselves, so they seek out women with even lower self-esteems so that they will never face rejection. Or are they controlling men that think they can tell a fat chick what to do since they have less self confidence are are more willing to please? Or is it something purely physical? I guess I should think back to early primative art and all the fertility statues with their full voluptuous bodies and bellies, the ultimate symbol for womanhood. Maybe it has something to do with that. I’m not sure. But all of it kinda weirds me out. I suppose I shouldn’t judge, right? To each his own. So I suppose if there are fat admirers, I should say more power to you.

So I don’t know. I guess I need to preface this by saying FOR ME, I just don’t get these Goddess clubs and parties. Yes I’m fat, yes I’m confident, but no… I don’t want to be fat for the rest of my life, I don’t want to be a Goddess. For me, the current state of my body is a temporary phase. While I embrace who I am now, and love me for me; I love myself enough to know I need to change and to want to change to make myself the healthiest happiest person I can be.

Life update:

Thank you all for all of your kind words of support through these past difficult months. I’ve always been a firm believer in the idea that when one door closes another one opens up in your life. Burying my fiance was one of the saddest days of my life, a day I thought would take years to recover from. But things change, life moves forward, and we keep living everyday despite all the bumps in the road. I’ve always been a very positive person, always finding the positive message even in life’s hiccups. With my fiance, I knew I had a purpose, perhaps even a predestined purpose, to help him through his last weeks in the hospital, to help him feel love and joy and happiness even through the most difficult time of his life.

After I returned from Greece, I spent a good month in shock. What would I do next? Would I ever find love again? Did I want to find love again? To distract myself, I went back to the computer and got back into Second Life (the online vitual world/game I’ve talked about in the past). I have a lot of friends in Second Life that were there to support me and help bring me back to reality. Isn’t that ironic? I need virtual reality to get back to reality… Hehe. Anyway, I guess I’m a lover of life, because I just couldn’t see myself wallowing a pool of despression the rest of my life; I knew I had to move on. So I started dating again. I know, some of you may think, “Already? she’s dating already? It’s too soon!!” It just didn’t feel too soon for me. I think people deal with grief in many ways. And with Vagelis, I felt I had 6 weeks in the hospital with him to say goodbye and deal with the loss. I had to move forward, and for me that meant dating again. In the hospital Vagelis told me he always wanted me to be happy, and if he couldn’t bring me happiness he knew someone would because I deserved to be happy. I felt like I had his blessing to move on, maybe he even nudged me in that direction from above.

As soon as I got back online, almost instantly, I met someone. From the minute Chris and I started talking we hit it off. I was shocked I was so comfortable with him. We had tons in common and loved chatting away. Honestly, I had never felt a connection like this before in my life. Life opened another door… our online friendship quickly turned into an online romance and then a real life romance. Chris and I both seem to have the same goals in life, the same way of life, and the same love of life. This may come as a shock to you, but Chris and I moved in together, and it’s been the happiest time since. Just when I thought life had beaten me down and left me for dead, something amazing happened. In all the loss and tragedy, I found love again. But I don’t want to down play what Vagelis and I had. I truly loved Vagelis, but it was just not meant to be. Our time was short, but he will be with me always. I’ve felt bad for Chris actually. I don’t ever want him to feel like I’ve just replaced Vagelis with him. I didn’t. Chris came out of nowhere and swept me off my feet with the kind love and friendship I’d never known before.

With love there is no right time, no right place… it just happens. I just feel like one of the luckiest women in the world. I’ve found not one but two wonderful loves in my lifetime. For this I am blessed.

You have all stayed with me and listened to me through the great times and the bad times. So you know I always have a piece of advice. Look at my life, just when you think things can’t get any worse, know that there are opportunities around the corner. Things can get better. The reason I say “can” and not “will” is because it is a choice. I could have stayed depressed and given up on life, but I didn’t. I moved forward, I accepted the loss, I smiled again. Things can get better, but you need to make it happen. If life slams a door shut in your face, wipe away your tears, smile and turn around and look for another door to open.