I won't have time to do this later tonight (Taking Candace to go see the final installment of Harry Potter) so I'm going to be writing this a bit at a time today.
On a serious note, I wanted to discuss self-image. My personal self image has always been super-heroic, but Fat Kid would short circuit everything else. What I've discovered over the last few months is that self image is really important to the weight loss process. Early on, I had people telling me how much different I looked but I couldn't see it so I did my then and now shot and I saw the difference, clear as crystal. That changed my perception of everything right then. I've seen where people have said that they used their fat as a shield or a crutch to blame all the woes in their personal life.
Been there, done that, bought the T-shirt.
The issue I have with continuing to do this is, when does it stop? We're losing the weight, so that particular crutch is gone or going away. Do we step up and acknowledge the issues that led to all of this to begin with and work to correct them or do we find a new crutch? For me, acknowledging the issue and working to remove it is the only option. For some reason. women getting this kind of surgery outnumber men by a factor of somewhere in the area of 7 to 1 or more. One of the issues that women have to face is that with their extra weight, most of the time, their breasts get big as well and that's a major source of their sexual self-image and for good reason. I know that as a male, I'm attracted to a woman with large breasts. Well, when that weight goes away, the girls tend to go with it. Not always, I mean if a woman has the genetics for dense breast tissue and large breasts, the fat loss won't make that much of a difference. Some, but not much. But if it's the other way, the large breasts came from the excess weight...well, the girls are gonna go away or at least start sagging. I know that is going to wreak havoc with the self-image.
I can sympathize with the self-image issue. I know I fight it every day. Cleaning out the remaining clutter from Fat Kid, keeping Feral in his cage, it's an active effort to fight all of this going on. But it can be done. Don't begin to think that it can't. Anything you have control of can be changed by you with a judicious application of you. Go to the mirror and tell yourself you are sexy, you are desirable, you are beautiful. Do this every day. Do it several times a day. Eventually you will begin to believe it. If you start having those thoughts that you aren't sexy, you aren't beautiful, you aren't desirable, catch it and tell yourself you are. Keep reinforcing it. If someone tells you otherwise, don't listen to them and correct them. If you let them get away with it, they will continue to do it. Don't let them. If they insist they are right, point out they are wrong. Stand up for yourself. If they get butt-hurt by your asserting yourself, then let them get butt-hurt. Kick them in the ass until they stop or go away. Either way, you win. If they relent and stop, then you win. If they walk away, then they weren't really a friend to begin with. Either way, you need to do what is right by you.
In that same vein, if your significant other is trying to push you away from any part of your support system, someone or something you want or need for support, don't let them do it. It's possible they view whatever they are trying to push you away from as some sort of threat to their position. If neither you or that support unit has done anything to threaten their position, the problem is theirs, not yours. Make sure any blame goes where it belongs.
So not so much light-hearted banter today. They can't all be fun and games. Weight loss of this magnitude is actually very serious, as is all of the issues that go along with it. I occasionally feel the need to expound on them when I see other people having the issues. I hope that by sharing my own journey and discoveries with them they will find the way around whatever may be blocking their success.
See y'all later.
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