I have struggled my whole life with being overweight. In high school I tipped the scale at over 300lbs (not sure what my actual weight was because the scale just said “error”) and after losing down to 230 in college I have gone between that and 280 or so for the last 10 years. In April of this year I decided enough was enough and started my weight loss journey again at a starting weight of 276 lbs. Previous weight loss attempts went much faster than this one- the pounds melted off. I’m old now, I guess, and at 32 I have fought tooth and nail for every last pound. I just reached a 30 lb weight loss using calorie counting and exercise. I have a streak of 203 days on my fitness pal, more than any previous attempt. My BMI is below 40 for the first time in 5 years. I have a tentative goal weight of 145lbs but what I really want is to be healthy.
Every day I use my lunch break at work to go and walk. This adds about 3000 steps to my daily total and has helped me immensely in reaching my 7500-10000 steps a day goal consistently. When I come back from my walk, I just grab my packed lunch and eat it while I’m working. I’m a pharmacist at a hospital and so 90% of my work is computer-based order verification. It takes me much longer to eat this way but I needed to slow down anyway.
Today I came back from my walk and heated up my food in the microwave in the break room. It was half of a potato with homemade turkey chili, a half serving of low fat cheese, and one tablespoon of light sour cream. A total of 394 calories by weight. My goal is <1711 per day, so this was well within my calorie budget for a meal. The break room was full of people and as I am pulling my food out of the microwave one of my coworkers says “oh, if i ate like you every day I would weigh 300 lbs too.”
I was not sure what to say to that. She said this in front of the entire room full of people. It was embarrassing and demeaning and made me feel awful. First of all, I don’t weigh 300 lbs. I weigh 246 lbs. I know that a loss of 30 lbs doesn’t look like that much on a frame as large as mine, but surely I don’t still look like I weigh 300lbs? I didn’t even weigh that much at the start this time. I haven’t weighed that much for 15 years. I just left the break room trying not to cry.
So many things went through my head. Why did she feel the need to say that? Is she trying to tell me I need to go on a diet? Is she just trying to be mean? I ate about two bites of my potato that I had previously looked forward to, and threw the rest away. My appetite was gone and I felt nauseated at the idea of others seeing me eat- a phobia that I’ve worked on with my therapist for years and was finally making strides on, as I’ve been eating while I work in the same room as others for almost half a year now.
So many toxic thoughts came back into my mind- I don’t deserve to eat at this weight. I can’t let others see me eat because, as I knew all along, they’ve been judging me with every bite. I feel like all of the blood, sweat, and tears I have put in to losing weight has been for nothing because not only do people not notice that I’ve lost 10.7% of my body weight, but they’re telling me to go on a diet in front of the whole pharmacy!
I spent the rest of the day trying not to cry and then went up to the gym after my shift and did my normal workout routine. I wanted to go home, eat a bag of flaming hot cheetos, and cry. But that would prove her right. I worked out, came home, and cried in the shower. Now I’m struggling to force myself to eat enough to reach at least 1200 calories for the day. I know starving myself is not the answer. But it is so disheartening for not only my victories to go unnoticed, but a perfectly acceptable and calorie-counted meal was judged harshly, even in a room full of people who went to the hospital cafeteria and got an 1100 calorie plate of burgers and fries, and it was due to the size of my body.
This turned into a bit of a rant. Long story short, I have busted my ass and lost 30 lbs. I have remained disciplined despite the process taking longer than I would like. But people just look at me and see “fat person- her lunch must be unhealthy.” Why do they think it’s their business?
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