Click.
That is the sound of one of my mental hang-up mysteries unlocking and floating into the realisation part of my brain.
Once again Hanlie and I seem to be rocking the same wavelength when it comes to our journies to health. (Really, I do read other blogs, too. I promise.) And once again, something she said has me thinking. (Really! Lots of ofther blogs!)
She mentioned in a recent post that when she first met her life coach, he asked her, “Why don’t you want to lose weight?” The post went on and I read on, but that question buried itself in my brain and refused to let go until I found an answer.
After all, what a strange question. Haven’t we all proven time and time again that we want to lose weight? Doesn’t the very fact we even have these blogs prove it?
And yet the question gnawed at my brain for days after. Why? Because I knew I had an answer to it somewhere in me.
Today, as I decided to rest my feet after a bit of wandering around the shops, I sat down across from a shop selling tiny tiny bits of marerial for tiny tiny girls for massive prices. My recent weight gain, recent blog posts, recent reading and that damned question all danced around in my head while I looked at that store.
I thought: “Even when I do lose weight and feel great, I will never wear crap like that. It looks horrible!”
Then I began thinking, “Well, maybe some of it. Maybe my fashion sense will change as I lose weight.”
After all, I have been overweight for nearly as long as I can remember. I’ve been wearing mostly overalls, jeans and baggy things for a long time. I don’t know what I’ll feel, what I will want to try on or what I will find I like at a healthy weight. I don’t know… I don’t know…
I don’t know how to be thin.
Bam! Click! Fireworks and the gigantic light bulb above my head.
The funny thing about realisations is that they are often simple, and there it was: I don’t know how to be thin. I don’t know who I am thin. I don’t know how to put a mask on it, so I’ll just have to be the real me, which is a whole different can of worms because I am terrified of rejection.
This isn’t exactly rocket science, but it isn’t exactly to be unexpected from a woman who was rejected (in all the real ways) by her parents.
So there it is. I don’t want to lose weight because I’m afraid. I’m afraid because I don’t know how to be thin. I don’t know how to prepare a mask for that.
While this is a beautiful realisation, it also makes things more difficult. I need to lose weight, find out who I am and be comfortable with that person all at the same time.
But knowing our inner motivations is half the battle, so I’m on the right track.

Hope this is not a duplicate comment – my previous one has disappeared.
I think we’re often scared to lose weight for fear that we will still be the same… I really have to explore that thought process a bit more!
I can imagine that it must be scary for someone who’s never been anything other than overweight or obese to wrap their minds around being thin. But remember, it doesn’t happen overnight – I think in such a case a slow and steady weight loss is ideal, because the inevitable plateaus are opportunities to become used to the changes. Remember, we didn’t go from falling in love to being married in one day either – we took it step by step until we had enough confidence in ourselves, our partners and our relationships to take the plunge.
As much as I would love to be rid of it all now and get on with my life, this is just one more reason that I need to take if off slow and steady if I’m going to keep it off.
I would say that is reasonable. I think that sometimes just the act of losing weight is so completely foreign to me in regard to exercise and eating and I get scared of actually staying skinny if I ever get there. Then that induces this crazy panic. So yeah, I get it.
It’s strange the way the mind works…