I attended a colleague’s baby shower this afternoon, held over lunch with about forty people who I work with and around. Despite seeing at least thirty of them on a nearly daily basis, several of them asked me if I had lost weight. Since I lost most of my weight last summer and fall, you can imagine how many times I have been asked this question – a lot. Lots and lots and lots. By people who I don’t even know the name of while standing in the ladies’ restroom at work, by close friends, and everyone in between.
What stuck out about this afternoon was that two of the people who asked me at various points were convinced that I had lost all of it in the last month – one even asked me if I had had “the weight loss surgery” – I assume he means the bypass or bariatric… I did not. I had surgery years ago and remember how painful recovery was - I will never voluntarily subject my body to that again. Also, if you have the gastric bypass surgery, you cannot have sugar or soda (even diet)… and I don’t really want to give either of those up.
Regardless, I told them no, and then had to repeat myself to their disbelief. The strange thing is, I really weigh about the same as I have for the last couple months. As I went through what I now consider the FAQ of how I lost weight and if I exercised (all while trying to eat a slice of pizza…yes, it felt a bit odd), it occurred to me that part of why my weight loss is now more apparent is that I have slowly started to replace my wardrobe of size 16 pants and XL tops with size 6 pants and small and medium tops… Even though I had lost a lot of weight, I had kept myself so draped in excess fabric that no one could tell, and I could keep blending in without the excess attention that I’m now the recipient of.
Was it intentional? A way to hide in plain sight, calculated to keep the artifice of the fat girl identity? Not consciously. I held off on buying clothes while losing weight because a. buying pants in size 12 only to need size 10 in a few weeks is expensive and obnoxious and b. I’m a little superstitious. A few years ago I managed to make it to a size 12 – at which time I bought a plethora of size 12 clothes – adorable dresses and cute cargo pants which I got to wear for for about a month before I gained it all back and then another twenty pounds.
So now the drape is off, and the world can see my newly svelte form, and the response has been overwhelmingly positive… and I’m uncomfortable with it. The attention makes me squirm, and I think it’s because of the possible brevity of this accomplishment — Yes I lost 75 pounds, but I could gain it all back. I could gain even more… with everyone watching. And it would be even worse than just being fat to begin with – because then I blended in, and no one noticed me.
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