The Real Me

This year has been an experience. A huge part of that experience has been my weight loss. I am within 5 pounds of having lost 100 pounds! I started Weight Watchers the second week in January of this year, and I hope that I will have lost 100 pounds by the second week of January 2011. A hundred pounds lost in a year...I can't even imagine.

Me after losing almost 100 pounds

The other day some of my family members dug out pictures of me from last Christmas. They are heartbreaking to look at. I joked that I couldn't believe they let me out in public looking like that, but in reality I only see how miserable I was. There's not many pictures of me around because I wouldn't let people take pictures. I refused to even really look at myself in the mirror, choosing instead to use only a small hand mirror to put on my make-up in the morning. I hated everything about the way I looked and felt.

As I looked at those pictures and reflected back on my life for the last 8-10 years of being over-weight, I began to realize that losing all that weight has allowed me to be who I really am.  Thinking back, I realize now that I felt as if I was wearing a fat suit and that I should be able to just take it off whenever I wanted. It never seemed real that I weighed so much, that I looked so big. In my mind and in my dreams, I was still average sized. It was a shock every time I saw myself in a photo or a mirror.

People who know me have commented on how my attitude has changed with the weight loss. I am happier and it shows. It has helped me out in my relationships and at work.

I'm often heard to say, "Nothing tastes as good as being thin feels." This is so true because feeling thin is so much different that I ever thought it would be (or remembered it being) when I was fat. Knowing that I look better is only half of why being thin feels good. Attitude is the other half. I am just an all around happier person, and I think it is because I can now be the person I really was on the inside. I don't have to feel like the real me is being hidden under layers of fat and giant clothes that are meant to try to hide how fat I really was.

I'm not done; I still have over 30 pounds to lose, but the big change has already happened. I can be me now; I feel as if others can now see the real me.

If you are overweight and are unhappy with how you look and feel, then I encourage you to finally make the decision to make a permanent life-style change for the better because NOTHING tastes as good as being thin feels!