Finding Normal

Chris asked me today how I was feeling about myself one month into this process or if anyone else had made comments. They have not. I don't imagine anyone else has noticed the small changes because they are housed in the same clothing. I apologized to him for not being a very good advertisement, at least not yet. That got the conversation off, in between sets of grunting crunches, on an advertising tangent. Chris referenced an "elevator advertisement." This was not a term I was familiar with, imagining print ads framed on the elevator walls. He said an elevator advertisement was selling yourself or your product as much as you could casually fit into the conversation between floors. Chris's best line as a personal trainer is to say, "I make people look good naked."

That's saying something when you realize you're your own worst critic. I should have quipped back at him, "To whom?" One of the things I want from losing weight and the reshaping of this body that is supposed to know better, is to feel pretty in lingerie. Lingerie is the place no bump or roll can hide. But feeling pretty isn't the same thing as looking like Krystal Richardson. (See picture above.) I'm not sure you have to actually be pretty to feel pretty. I believe psychologists agree that people at any weight can have that feeling regardless of their weight. I'm all for a healthy sense of self-esteem, but I also know that overweight is inconvenient and uncomfortable. For me the weight crept up gradually. I had time to get comfortable like a frog being cooked to death as the put of water he's sitting in is warmed one degree at a time. My weight went up by ounces at a time until it was 50+ pounds. I made a new normal. New normal was necessary. It got me up and out into the world. I lived my life, had friends, worked on my marriage, mothered my kids, worked at my jobs, all without feeling overly self-conscious or a need to run and hide myself from the world. As many times as I moaned about not having anything to wear to church, I still went. In fact, I was in pretty good company. They say the average American woman wears a 12/14.

The weight going to come off just as slowly, ounces at a time. As predicted, the scale hasn't changed dramatically so far, but there have been changes. Just those few changes have been enough to remind me of how "normal" felt when I was thinner and that it was a different normal than the one I adapted myself to. The sense of pretty I feel that goes with being thinner really is different than whatever sense of self I have come to terms with at my present weight. I don't need to look like a fitness starlet, but I do need to get back to my other normal.