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June 1987 |
I never meant to get fat. It kind of snuck up on me over time. On the day I was married I weighed about 125 lbs. I had always been naturally thin and fit and was very active in dance and aerobics so I assumed that others who were heavy must just be lazy. I would never let that happen to me right? I ate whatever I wanted really and still stayed trim. Until I had my first baby. I ended that pregnancy at 158 pounds which at the time I thought was enormous. So shortly after my son was born I set out immediately to restore my figure. I lost most of the weight fairly easily, but held onto about 5 pounds from the pregnancy. I didn't worry too much about that though, because I looked pretty good again and could still wear most of my clothes. Then came baby number two a couple of years later by C-section. Between the surgery and a cross country move I was pretty overwhelmed. Tried hard to work out whenever I could, but with two young kids in a tiny apartment it was difficult to find the time or space. So while I was still young and most of the weight came off on it's own, I hung onto an additional 5 pounds. Baby number three added another 5 and bumped me up a couple pant's sizes. I rationalized that it was normal for a mother of three to be a little chubby. No worries. Babies 4, 5 and 6 brought more pounds and increasingly larger pants. I had developed a hypothyroid condition in my fourth pregnancy that caused rapid weight gain, so by this time I knew something had to be done. I yo-yo'd around for a year or so before I got serious and put forth a grand effort over the course of several months. I got down to about a size 6 again and felt great about that. I was 32 after all and had six kids. I was very careful for about a year and felt pretty smug that I had maintained my weight at around 140. But pride always comes before the fall. The trouble was I had not completely retrained my thinking or lifestyle, so most of my efforts involved extreme measures and diets that were difficult to sustain so I was getting bored and cranky about things when I got pregnant with baby number 7. I guess I just felt like pregnancy was my excuse to return to my old ways. Besides, I was eating for two as they say (Never mind that in truth I was eating more than I would have needed to if I'd been carrying triplets). On top of that my thyroid was acting up again and I gained 70 pounds. Not sure how this is possible to this day but I lost NONE of that weight after birth. Came home as heavy as when I went into the hospital to have the baby, and not one single pound of the weight came back off. Two more babies rapid fire and I soon found myself hovering at around 220 pounds, but living in a fairly healthy level of denial. It was just baby fat right? Not my fault. Was hard to deny the size 18 to 20 pants though. Or the hip and knee issues that were starting. Definitely could not deny the sleep apnea or blood pressure scares. Or my lack of libido or energy for playing with my kids or keeping house. Walking up stairs would leave me breathing hard and I was in slow motion. Needed naps every day. I avoided cameras and mirrors. I was a soccer coach, room mom, sunday school teacher, day care provider, my husband travelled all the time so was not around to help much. I was pretty much always exhausted, but tried my best to have a positive attitude. Was so busy caring for the needs of my large family though that the idea of working out seemed like a fairy tale. I had always wanted a big family and loved my kids, but felt barely able to manage my home at times. Everything I tried to do was so physically challenging while carrying so much weight around. There were emotional consequences too. I felt ugly and depressed. Hardly seemed worth bothering putting on makeup. Forget about swimsuit shopping or going to the pool with my family. It was humiliating at a restaurant one night when I could not fit into the chair. I floundered around trying this and that...Counting points. Food combining. Every fad that came along. I would lose a few pounds then put them back on again. It seemed hopeless. Looking back I don't know that anything was wrong with the programs I tried. I just didn't have the internal drive needed to stick with anything long enough. I fussed and whined about wanting to lose weight, but in truth I didn't really want it badly enough to do the real work yet. So when the going got tough I threw up my hands in despair and ate a doughnut. Then felt guilty about it the next day. I was quite the expert at pity parties and excuses. Wanting to gain self control and have a healthy body again, but really not knowing how. Nothing I tried seemed to work and I was just so darned tired. I was 40 years old. On the surface I was keeping it together fairly well. My kids were healthy and happy. I threw myself into being a good mother. I got through my daily "to do" list...mostly. I even managed to lose about 15 pounds during the year after my last baby was born. But I hit a wall at 205 that I just could not get past. The house was usually a mess. My body was falling apart and so was my spirit.
Something had to change.
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I will never forget the day as long as I live. I was generally a mess. My youngest child was a year old and my oldest was a senior in high school. My health had been declining over time from being so overweight and from the postpartum depression I was battling (I wasn't admitting that then but I can now). My hair was falling out. I had dark circles under my eyes. My home was often messy. We were eating way too much fast food as I struggled to make our home run but couldn't quite manage it all...carpools, homework, errands, housework, church obligations, etc. There was always more to do than I seemed to be able to accomplish in a day. I was dragging myself out of bed every morning and got tired and crabby far too often. This picture shows about what I looked like most days. I look pregnant in this photo, but I assure you I was not. After nine babies I had zero abdominal muscle tone left and a giant umbilical hernia that made my belly stick out. It wasn't pretty. I desperately sought reasons outside of myself to explain how I was feeling and acting...my husband was rarely home, the kids weren't pitching in as they should, I had medical issues making it difficult for me to lose weight, we had just moved, I was just too busy with such a big family to take time for workouts, I was too tired... blah blah blah...excuses excuses. Now I know that's just what they were, but at the time I convinced myself that it was just easier for other people. And that my circumstances were why I was fat so it wasn't my fault. That's what I told myself, but I didn't really believe it. Other people who knew me would probably not have guessed that I felt as out of control as I did at the time. I was able to maintain a pretty happy and put together disposition overall. But I still knew I was not functioning as well as I could be and should be, and with the vitality that my family deserved. That particular day was May 14, 2009...two days before my 41st birthday. It had been an especially challenging week and I had barely slept the night before worrying over some personal issues my family was facing. That morning I found myself staring into the bathroom mirror for a very long time. Just gazing at the woman reflecting back at me and realizing I did not even recognize her anymore. Her eyes were dull. Pretty much everything about her was. Dull and saggy. I looked ten years older than I was, and felt even older than that. Could not remember the last time I hadn't felt stressed out. Both my body and my spirit had taken something of a beating it seemed. Who was that woman I was staring at? She didn't look like me at all. What did she think was funny? What were her hobbies? I honestly didn't remember. This may sound strange, but I felt rather detached from the image in the mirror. I was actually a little bit sorry for her. She definitely wasn't me. The me I still knew inside loved to play and laugh and dance and sing. The real me was full of life and energy. Loved the outdoors and had a million interests. The real me was an extrovert who thrived when surrounded by people with something awesome planned to do. I was a leader. An actress and good speaker and teacher. The real me was the energizer bunny in human form. That woman I saw that day was not the real Laura Faulkner. She was an impostor. Like in that movie where the aliens snatched people's bodies. That's what it seemed like to me. I had been invaded by this other persona that was hiding the person I was inside...from the rest of the world...and even from myself. I'll never really know what made that day different from so many other days. Maybe this was what a midlife crisis felt like? Maybe it was the unique personal circumstances our family found ourselves in at the time? At it's core though I guess I just finally got mad. Rather than sitting wallowing and feeling overwhelmed, I suddenly felt very angry at what the mirror was revealing to me. Not really angry at myself exactly. Not so much mad at any particular person or thing. But a fire started deep down inside of me that day. I was done living as I had been. I was done looking and feeling like this. I was kicking out the stranger and reclaiming my body and my life again. And I made a vow to myself that one year from that day...by my 42nd birthday...that the girl I saw in the mirror would be ME again. I would love myself enough to bring that woman fully back to life. No matter what it took. I had finally hit rock bottom. I was ready at last.
