Hey Fatty Boom Boom

Sweet sugar dumpling, hey fatty boom boom, let me tell you something ........

This is the song that my brother would taunt me with for ages and ages when we were growing up during the 70's.  I never thought I was a fat child - a fat baby, definitely - but not a fat child.  I guess it was probably just a horrible brother thing more than the reality of the situation.  A post by Tif earlier this week made me stop and think about my weight during my life time.

Many is the time I thought I was horrifically overweight only to look back at photos and wonder what on earth I was smoking at the time - no way could that be considered over weight by any stretch of the imagination.  What I have realised that it was all to do with numbers and not how I looked. 

In my late teens I hovered around the 50-52kg mark  (I am 5'7") so, in all likelihood, I was probably a little under-weight.  When I got married at 22, I weighed 45kgs (that was a 5kg loss in 3 days due to stress I am sure !!).  When I went in to have K, I weighed 97.8kgs - it was not a pretty sight but I had the excuse that I was having a baby but she was only 3kgs when she was born so I couldn't really blame her for the extra 30-40kgs I was carrying around at the time.

For most of my adult life I have sat on the wrong side of 60 - sometimes waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay on the wrong side and sometimes only a little on the wrong side.  When A was working in Taiwan, K and I ate a lot less than what we would have eaten if he was at home.  I rarely cooked so we never had big dinners - scrambled eggs, toast, soup - quick and easy things because that was all I could manage as a single parent working full time and having to do both our chores at home, inside and out !  It wasn't an easy time but we had made the decision for him to go and work there and so I just had to suck it up - as do lots of other people.  Anyway, my weight came down and when we left to go to Taiwan to have a holiday over there and then shoot across to Hong Kong for a couple of days, I was probably weighing in the region of about 62-65kgs.  I thought I was still fat as the number in my head that would see me thin was 50-55kgs. 

We got off the airplane and A had told me to look for some Taiwanese guy who would pick us up because he had to go to a site, but when we walked through he was standing there waiting for us.  I will never forget the look on his face - he was shocked.  He recovered well and was so pleased to see us - as we were to see him.  Later I found out that he thought I had been really really sick and hadn't told him.  To me, I was still fat.  When I look at the photos now of our holiday there, I can see why he got a fright, and I can't see why I would have thought I was still fat EXCEPT for the fact that in my head, I am thin when the scales say I am in the 50-55kg range.  To be honest, I think that I would probably have to lose both legs before I will ever weigh that little again but I have come to the acceptance that it is not about the number, it is about what clothes I can fit into and how I look.  That isn't to say that the number isn't important to me because it is, I still weigh myself every morning and, while I don't live and die by the number that it tells me each day, it does play some role in my mental state of mind with regards to my weight.  I know that weights fluctuate daily and a gazillion times during each day and that is all that it is, a particular number at a particular time on a particular day - that doesn't change the fact that it does go into my head and sometimes mess with me BUT I am working on not letting it change how my day proceeds !!!

 

   1966                                                                                                                          1968/1969 ?

This is A and I at Taroka Gorge in Taiwan (December 2005), and me in Taiwan trying to work out where we are and how to get to where we wanted to be !

Stanthorpe April 2011

Spain September 2007

I don't have any photos that I can find on this computer of when I was at some of my top weights, probably because I try to stay on the other side of the camera but looking for these photos today as really got me thinking about how much I have to change my mind set.  2012 is going to be able losing weight so that I am in a healthy weight range and getting fit so that my body stops breaking down the way it currently is.

My highest weight (other than when I was pregnant) was 95.5kgs - for me that was the turning point.  Since then I have lost and gained so many kgs it just isn't funny but it is life and I have to suck it up and deal with it.  We all make choices - I will choose dessert over dinner, biscuits over fruit, soft drink over water any day of the week - and if I do that, I will live an unhealthy and unproductive life.  So, I will try to make the healthy choices - at least more often than not - so that these pesky kgs that crept on over Christmas will creep away, and I will try to be more objective when I look in the mirror at myself (I try not to do this very often but sometimes it catches me unawares !!).  I am now in the 70's (only just but there none the less) and I promise myself to work towards getting into the 60's - sooner rather than later.  I also promise not to beat myself up as I stumble and fall along the way, but to pick myself up and continue on my journey.

M (a friend of mine in Sydney) has a heap of motivational posters on FB.  My TFTD is taken from one of them.

Love, hugs and positive energy !

TFTD : No matter how slow you go, you are always lapping everyone on the couch

PS - it is funny how posts sometimes don't take the path you think they are going to take when  you sit down to write them.  This was supposed to be about how fat I am feeling at the moment - yesterday when I was getting dresssed the song popped into my head and it really staed there all day.  Reminding me that, no matter when I aim to end up, I am still fat right this minute, right here and right now.  And that is OK because that truly is the reality of me and where I am.  I just hope that I can be as realistic when I get down to the low 70's and upper to mid 60's and be realistic about how I look then - the last thing I want to do is look older than I am because I have lost too much weight.

Have the best rest of your day ever !

PPS - sorry the photos are a little all over the shop, I am having great difficulty in getting them to stay where I put them !