Have you ever thought of the process of gaining weight? Like have you ever looked at an obese person and said "how did they get to this point?" or "that can never happen to me!" because I use to all the time when I was skinny. And even now looking back I am still like "how the hell did this happen?? and why didn't someone hold a freaking intervention?!?!". But lets be honest, that's an awkward convo to have with someone and I am sure it wouldn't have gone over well with me even if someone had tried. In fact, maybe they did and I hated it so much I blocked it out of my memory... I occasionally do that :-)
No matter what, it isn't something anyone has really asked me until recently. Now I have a super nosy PT, who tends to moonlight as my therapist, and she asked me flat out, "Marissa, how did you gain this weight? when did it start? did something happen that triggered it? why did you let it get this out of hand?"
And I had to think about it for quite awhile. Part of the answer is easy... there isn't one specific thing caused it (other than poor eating habits and a lazy life style) and there isn't anyone to blame for it (other than me). Now I am sure Oprah or Dr. Phil would connect it to some deep underlying issue or something, but really, who has the time for that stuff? Not to mention, there are reasons for gaining the weight and then a whole different reason for keeping it on.
I, however, after lots of nights laying in bed thinking about it, have uncovered how it all kinda happened. It was a combination of being on my own at college and having to cook on my own mixed with large quantities of alcohol and pizza at 3am compiled with all my best friends being involved in their sororities and disappearing and being busy and then smushed together with a wardrobe of yoga pants and sweatshirts. Odd right? well at least the bit about yoga pants and sweatshirts? Ok let me explain. First of all, that is what every girl at college wore to class. Yoga pants, IU sweatshirt and uggs. It was like our uniform. Great thing... its comfy as hell. Bad thing: its hard to tell how much weight you've gained because the pants just stretch to cover your now giant ass and the sweatshirt hides a multitude of sins. So that answers the question of how it happened without me noticing. Also, I was surrounded by friends that didn't care what I looked like. They loved me for me, which is awesome, but explains why no one said "oh hey Marissa, you are getting a bit wide". My family probably wanted to say something but lets not forget I was 9 hours away from them, saw them twice a year and would have ripped them a new one for saying something. I woke up one day, and BOOM, I was fat. Crazy, I know, but that it how it happened. It wasn't a slow and steady process, it felt like it happened overnight, which is the scariest part of the whole thing.
Another interesting detail in all this weight gain is that I suffer from what I call "backwards anorexia". So anorexics don't eat and still see themselves as fat in the mirror, right? Well, I eat and eat and eat and I see myself as skinny in the mirror. Strange right? I think there is a more technical term for it... maybe some type of body dysmorphia? I don't know, I have a business degree, not a psych degree. No matter what, it has its pros and cons. Pro: when I look in the mirror I see myself as I was in high school and still think I am hot! Great for self esteem. Con: I had no sense of how heavy I had become. So this also explains how I let myself become so overweight... I never really saw it. I'd look in the mirror and see the girl I was when I was 19. I mean yes, I knew I was gaining weight deep down because my pant size was increasing and all the sudden I had this extra chin making appearances. But you would be surprised how easy it is to ignore all that. It wasn't until I started seeing pictures of myself or catching my shadow or reflection in a window that it started to sink in, and by then, the damage had been done.
I think a lot about how different my life would be if I had not gained the weight. If I would be happy... or happier I guess. How much would that one thing about my life change things for me? Change for the better? Maybe, maybe not. A significant part of me thinks I needed to gain the weight, that somehow it was part of my journey and that it saved me from something terrible that would have happened had I been skinny. I never really liked who I was when I was skinny. My priorities were screwed up, I wasn't very nice and had no compassion for other people. Maybe gaining weight made me a better person, maybe I just grew up. Either way, I like who I am now compared to who I was. It is hard to say who I would be and what I would be doing if I had never gained the weight, but I have a feeling I would be worse off...Although I think most people think the opposite. Biggest challenge now is convincing myself that I will not become that person again when I am skinny. Deep down I equate "skinny Marissa" with a person I didn't like and I have recently come to terms with the fact that I am not that person anymore and won't become her if I lose the weight. Therefore, it is time. Time to do this once and for all. I feel like I have come full circle and it was part of my journey and something that will always be apart of me, however, it is time to start a new phase, a much skinnier phase, a phase full of tank tops, summer dresses and skinny jeans!!
