Half-Assed

One of the blogs I really enjoy reading is Jeanette Fulda's Half of Me. It's not a WLS blog, but it is about weight loss...Jeanette took on the task of losing half of her body weight, starting at 372 lbs and working her way down to about 160. Her writing is witty and insightful, and her story is honest and devoid of mushy sentimentality and excuses.

Jeanette published her first book recently, called Half-Assed: A Weight Loss Memoir. She fills in all the blanks about her history of obesity and her impressive weight loss, and tells a simple, yet interesting and relatable, story. I recommend checking it out. (The link above will take you to her own website to sell the book. You can also buy it from Amazon.com, but I think she gets more of the proceeds if you buy it directly. Also, she'll sign it for you. And you can use PayPal.) It's breezy, not too serious, but shares her very real perspective on losing weight. One thing I love about Jeanette is that she has never displayed a lot of self-loathing about being fat; she is supportive of fat-acceptance, even though the movement doesn't support her. Another thing I love about her is that she isn't all judgmental about WLS or about "losing weight naturally" like a lot of folks are. She simply hadn't seriously tried losing weight before, and wanted to at least try before thinking about having surgery to do so. I applaud her for that.

One of the last paragraphs in her book talks about her former fat self, and how that fat girl will never go away, no matter how hard you try. Losing weight doesn't change your past or any of the experiences we had, no matter how painful or sad they might have been. I find myself, now more than ever before, referring to my former fat self quite a bit. I tell my hubby that I couldn't have done this or that last year, when I was 63 pounds heavier. I think it might bug him a bit, although he is terribly proud of me. But I think it's part of the process of wrapping my head around the changes that have occured and getting used to who I am now. I try to "kill" that fat girl, but she's still in my pictures and my memories, and those of my friends and families as well. She's in all my wedding pictures--happy, but definitely obese. That's who I was, and losing weight doesn't change that fact. It's hard to get used to seeing a different person in the mirror. It takes a lot of time and mental energy to figure this new self out, and I'm not quite there yet. I can only imagine how much harder that is when you've lost 200 lbs.