The Emotional Reaction

Before I started doing anything constructive about my situation, I went through a period of emotional and intellectual flailing. This can go on for years. Looking back, I think my experience was based roughly on the classic Kubler-Ross phases of processing loss:

1. Anger
2. Denial
3. Bargaining
4. Depression
5. Acceptance

Most of my behavior was invisible to others, and involved trying to out think the problem and beating myself up for failing. Here's what I remember:

• Silently calling myself fat. Criticizing every imperfect aspect of my body. And, of course, criticizing my weakness of character for being overweight.
• Impulsive bursts of activity. Fasting, sudden jogging frenzies, stocking the kitchen with No Fat food, swearing off TV. One thing I didn't do was buy large pieces of exercise equipment, but I wanted to.
• Comparing myself to others. Resenting my teenager and anyone else who was slim. Soothing myself by noticing how many others were heavier than I was.
• Making vows. Promising new behaviors that would never again allow me to get out of shape. Virtuously depriving myself of food.
• Wishing. Praying for some sort of magical fix, for which I would do something vague in return. Now and then getting on the scale. Being thrilled if my weight was down, despondent if it wasn't.
• Whining. It's not fairrrrr. Self pity morphed quite naturally into martyrdom (stick-of-celery syndrome) or weekend warrioring (I-am-a-rock syndrome). I call this the suffer-and-complain cycle.
• Avoidance. Avoiding friends and family members who were actually working on their weight in some sort of rational manner. Avoiding the scale and the mirror, my arch-enemies. Hiding my too-tight clothes in a drawer.
• Rationalizing. Scorning all formal weight loss programs and diets. Lambasting media standards of thinness or muscledness. Continuing to eat fast food and sodas---because they were cheaper and I needed to be thrifty.
• Blaming. Blaming my family and friends for bad food being around, and for my having no time to exercise, and for making me watch TV, movies, and sports with them. If only they could change.
  

Secretly I knew I was overfed and underexercised. Pretty simple. But my mind had to do what my mind had to do. Then one day, I changed.

     END OF THE ROAD
          STAKE IN THE GROUND
               ENOUGH IS ENOUGH

So what was the big event that precipitated this change? A dramatic epiphany? A health crisis? The hand of God? None of that. It was my belly.

I always liked my belly, which had only been radically different during pregnancy. But now it was round, a bit flabby, never flat. I could pinch fat all around my waist, which I now referred to as the "waist area" since the in-and-out aspect of my former waist was gone. I felt badly that I had forsaken my belly and other parts of my body. Neglect. Indulgence. Lack of appreciation. Sigh. This time I didn't slip into anger, denial, or bargaining. I didn't get stuck in self pity or defensiveness. I accepted the situation.