Why are you fat?

"The prospect of being obese, sick and out of control for the rest of our lives led some of us to conclude that life was simply not worth living."
(Taken from overeater's anonymous book) 

I've been to that  point. Several times in fact. The point where I was so miserable that I would go to bed at night hoping not to wake up the next day. The point I would bury my feelings in food, hoping that the next bite would just kill me. The point where I spent more time thinking of ways to die than thinking of ways to live. It's not a nice place to be.

"What has happened in our past does not have to dictate our future.  We can choose if we want to move forward.  We can choose if we are worth it.  We can choose if we want to be stuck." 

 "When you open your mind, open your eyes, and open your life to opportunity, to change,  and to positive influences, the excuses start to dwindle and you will find yourself truly steering your life in a way that is meaningful more often than simply accepting “what has happened.”"
(from every day paleo)

Have you ever stopped to really think about your life, your past and the moments in it that changed you forever? Have you ever sat and thought about when and why you formed your core beliefs? Those deep beliefs that make you who you are. Have you ever thought about why you are who you are? Have you ever thought, I mean really, truly, honestly, without excuses or blame, sat and thought about why you're fat? I never did.

Until now. For me the hardest person in existence to be honest with is me. I love to lie to myself. I love to hide behind a blanket of denial. Being honest with myself hurts. It hurts my pride. It hurts my soul, such as it is (totally another post there, a long one). I don't like pulling back that blanket. Why? Because I don't like what I see. It's like Dorothy at the end of the yellow brick road. You're the wizard? Why surely that can't be.

So finally, after 38 years, I have started to dig. I've started to climb inside myself. Not in an attempt to hide as I have for most of my life, but rather to discover, to see what I can find behind that blanket. To look inside and find out why I am who I am, to find out why I'm fat. To find out why. I know the answers can be found, I need only look hard enough and deep enough. I need to scrape off the decades of fear, self loathing, denial and attempts at forgetting.

In an attempt (so far a rather successful one) to find those answers I have turned to the library and the Internet. To other people who have similar problems. Honestly it was quite surprising to finally realize I'm not the only one.

I've always know of addicts. Drug addicts, alcoholics, even sex addicts. I never knew that other people had an addiction to food. I certainly didn't know there was an entire organization dedicated to helping those like me. I didn't realize that, if not the actual answers, they had at least some advice, a road map to help me in the right direction.
The Twelve Steps of Overeaters Anonymous

1. We admitted we were powerless over food — that our lives had become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5. Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all.That would be a VERY long list.
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it.
11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these Steps, we tried to carry this message to compulsive overeaters and to practice these principles in all our affairs. 

OK, so as an atheist I can certainly do without the jebus junk. They did "borrow" these from AA. However I have recently remembered that spirituality is most certainly possible without theology. I just need to rediscover it. Or perhaps more accurately I need to let it out of the box my mind has had it locked in for a long time. So, from most things I take what fits and leave what does not. I only have to assure that I am being truly honest with self and not passing things over out of denial or lack of personal comfort. Not always an easy thing to do.

So, why are you fat? There are reasons. And they are far from as simplistic as much of society makes them out to be. It's not just because you eat to much. Why do you eat to much? That is one very important question you must ask. What are you getting out of being fat? What does it do for you? It must be doing something or you wouldn't be fat.

So, is it a shield? Is it a way to keep people from getting to close? Yes.
Is it an attempt at slow and painful suicide? Most certainly
Are there deep seated, hugely personal reasons for you eating food? Absolutely.

The Principles in the Twelve Steps (as listed in Step Twelve of The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions of Overeaters Anonymous)
 Step One:  Honesty
To me this is probably the most important principle. Honesty with self. Looking within, without the veil of denial and lies. Looking at the truth of self. Of why you are who you are.
 Step Two:  Hope
Without hope, what is the point of anything? I've lived without hope for most of my life. No hope of success, no hope of ever finding happiness. It is not a pleasant way to live. Without hope, you have nothing.
 Step Three:  Faith
Faith in self. Faith that you are strong. Faith that you can be a healthy and happy person.
 Step Four:  Courage
 Step Five:  Integrity
 Step Six:  Willingness
You have to have the desire and willingness to do what has to be done to be healthy. Looking inside ones self can be frightening.
 Step Seven:  Humility
 Step Eight:  Self-discipline
Kind of goes without saying does it not?
 Step Nine:  Love for others
 Step Ten:  Perseverance
 Step Eleven:  Spiritual Awareness
 Step Twelve:  Service

Again, I take some I leave some. But most, to me, are quite relevant and true. They all lead back to that question. Why are you fat? What makes you eat the food you eat. What causes you to eat the amounts you eat. Why are you fat?

I would love to be able to honest say it's from medical issues. But that's not really true. Most of the medical issues are from being fat. I would like to say it's genetic. Perhaps that's true to a point. A very fine point. But not a valid reason to weigh what I do and be in the condition I've allowed myself to reach. I can blame no one and nothing other than my self. And frankly that pretty much sucks a large hairy phallic symbol. I want to be able to put the blame on someone or something else. I don't want to take responsibility for my own actions and choices.

Well, that's the way I thought before. But that's changed. I'm sure why exactly it's changed, but I'm glad it has. So now it's a trip down the rabbit hole. Time to explore what makes me me. Time to figure out why I am who I am. What being fat is doing for me. Why I make the choice to stay this way.