My Weight: Part One
204.
That was the highest number I’ve ever seen on the scale. It may have been heavier than that, but that was the number that made me wake the f up.
(For reference, I’m just under 5’1”. )
When I was (barely) 18 and learned I was pregnant with Baby #1, I was under 100 pounds. I also ate next to nothing, threw up most of what I did eat, smoked, and drank tons of coffee. The taste of my trusty cigarettes turning my stomach and Mountain Dew tasting like soap should have been my first clues that something was amiss, but I fought through the waves of nausea like a pro. Maybe we chalk that up to being young and less than in tune with my body and its cues.
I did quit smoking once I figured out why my body was rejecting the sweet taste of menthol I had been enjoying for years, but still didn’t pick up the pace on eating. At one point my doctor warned me that if I didn’t start gaining weight, she was going to have to intervene. That was enough for me to start eating a bit more, mostly peanut butter and his mom’s homemade toasted cereal mix.
When my appendix ruptured at 7.5 months, I was so swollen from water retention and bloating that I had earned stretch marks all over my body within a week. I’ll spare you the details of that next week, but when I finally went home with my baby, I was still heavily medicated, bloated, and in lots of pain. Thankfully, as my body healed, it started to feel and look more like my own. I haven’t ever dipped below that 100 pound mark, but I did get down to a healthy weight and stayed there for the next few years.
Enter pregnancy #2.
This time I was diagnosed with gestational diabetes so my new low carb diet helped me gain only a few pounds. I fit into my regular clothes pretty quickly and with little issue.
Postpartum depression is no joke, you guys. By the time Baby #2 was 6 months old, I had eaten so many of my feelings that I had gained 80+ pounds. I actually look back at pictures from that time in my life and how I wasn’t able to see how quickly that weight came on astounds me.
The next few years were spent in some version of the following: spending the little bit of extra money I had on a Gazelle fitness contraption, using it while watching the first season of The Biggest Loser, seeing two contestants who had the same measurements as I did and wondering why they looked SO much better than I did, even at that weight. After putting in my time gliding through the air, like an air gazelle, opening a pint of Ben and Jerry’s and having it as a night time snack. Wake up in the morning and dump a bunch of peppermint mocha creamer into my coffee, wash it down with a few Mountain Dews, and only eat Doritos and candy so it looks like I never eat. Run through the Arby’s drive thru on the way home from work, order a roast beef and cheddar value meal, park in the park-n-ride, scarf it down, dump the trash in the old green metal bin, and head home to make (and eat) dinner with the family.
Rinse and repeat for several years.
At a yearly appointment my doctor. who has a reputation for her unwillingness to sugar coat anything, warned me that I was on the fast track to a life of misery if I didn’t lose weight. She knew my family history was riddled with diabetes, reproductive issues, and so on. I argued with her, telling her that I barely ate anything and the weight just wouldn’t come off. She asked me if I would be willing to pay $50 a month to lose 50 pounds, and I said if I had it, I would have. She looked me in the eye and said “Kerri, I believe that you can do anything you want to do. Please, do not waste your life feeling miserable.”
I went home and cried and cried and cried. I felt awful, like I was an enormous failure. I had no clue that I had allowed my weight to get to this point. 204 was the number on the scale at that appointment.
To be continued…
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