You Wear It Well

I think probably the worst thing a woman can hear is this comment:

"You really wear your weight well."

What. The. Heck. Oh I'm sorry, is my extra 50 lbs of possibly anti-depressant taking pudge making you think of me in my old Buckle jeans? Because, let me tell you, I wore those well. The weight? Not so much. And the comment? Just a polite way to say..."you're looking a bit on the obsese side. But you still have a pretty face."

My weight gain, as chronicled somewhat in this blog, has been a nightmare of gargantuan (literally) proportions. I went from never having to worry about that extra calorie to frantically counting every little thing I eat in the hopes that I didn't go over my 1250 calorie a day limit. Oh no! I ingested an extra strawberry! It may send me over the edge! Yes, I lost about 25 lbs right before my wedding last year, the result (sadly) of self-starvation, lunatic exercising to see who was going to break first - me or the elliptical - and a couple of rounds of finger down throat upchucking in the bathroom. But it worked and I was looking more my normal self when I walked down the aisle to my hubby, although not really that close to my weight loss goal.

The honeymoon (the entire 7 day all-inclusive panorama of world class cuisine and 24 hour room service) caused me to start the ballooning climb back upward. Coupled with newly wedded stretch pant bliss, I am now back (almost) where I started 2 years ago when I sat in the doctor's office with my boyfriend (now husband) feeling like a gigantic cow and needing some answers. I have literally tried everything...bulemia, calorie counting, weight watchers, thyroid tests, personal training with a psychotic biotch with an annoying accent, and now I am jazzercising 2-3 times a week, an exercise that can burn upwards of 450 calories per one hour session. And I'm counting calories again. And crying because nothing fits. I finally gave up and went back to my doctor this week.

I started looking back on when the weight gain started (2003) and what was going on in my life at that time, which included a crazy boyfriend, parents remarrying, and some other stuff that caused me to seek solace in a little pill called Zoloft. And the weight gain started. I put on 30 lbs in the first 3 years - but nobody really noticed because my hip bones protruded in my bathing suit before. But when I hit the 150 mark, it started to get bad and noticeable. And I had another depression/OCD/anxiety related episode that caused another doctor to prescribe Cymbalta, the crack of SSRI drugs.

My new doctor, a woman who was so understanding and kind that she made me want to cry out of gratitude, confirmed my belief that perhaps the continuous use of anti-depressants had been one of the culprits of my weight gain. And, with her help, I am weaning off of them and I will no longer be carrying a pill bottle around in my purse, a la Sophia on the Golden Girls, for the first time in 6 years. It's going to take a couple of months...remember the comment about crack? Yeah, evidently the body goes through some serious withdrawals from this stuff. I hope my butt starts withdrawing back to its former self, but it's going to take time, much like everything important in life does.

So stay with me, because it's about to get interesting. And one day, very soon, clad in my old Buckle jeans, I will be looking like this...my former self, seen above. And yeah, those are the Buckle jeans.