Why I want to lose weight...

There's a few things I've been wanting to blog about lately, and as I've been pretty productive today and have a spare hour, I'm going to do it now. 

Lately, I've been questioning my motives for losing weight. Recently one of my WL buddies sent me a list of her personal reasons for wanting to slim down, and I thought I'd better do it for myself too--make sure my reasons will sustain me beyond swimsuit season. (Bikini-vanity is important, but it isn't the only thing motivating me, apparently.) 

1. Most importantly, I want to lose weight so that I don't waste any more time as The Fat Girl. I'm 22, which I recognize is hardly ancient, but I struggled with my weight nearly all four years of university, which caused me to be much less confident and happy in my own skin than I might have been. It didn't make me an introvert--I'm outgoing by nature--but I was pigeon-holed. I was the funny fat girl, and while I managed to make that work for me, it wasn't what I wanted, and while I don't waste time regretting it, I'm aware that my college experience could've been much different if I'd been able to shed the excess pounds, and baggage that went with them, sooner. By some strange twist of fate, my three best girl friends during my last year of college were super-skinny, so I was always painfully aware of my weight problem, and though I loved to go out and have a good time, I could never really relax and enjoy myself... I was too busy worrying about what people thought of me. 

By the same token, I made the ballsy decision last year to move to Ireland for six months, and while I went out often, and had a lot of fun, I wasn't comfortable--I wasn't proud of myself and the way I looked the way I want to be. But it's not too late to be what I might have been, to paraphrase. After finishing my year in Korea I'm moving back to my college town for a year and living with a friend who is in university now, and I want to be able to be proud of myself... to know I'm healthy and beautiful.  

2. I want to lose weight because I love shopping.  This may seem like a stupid reason to some people, and that's fine. Some people don't care about clothes, or fashion... And I used to be one of those people. But not by choice. I didn't care about having cute clothes because I couldn't have cute clothes. That was the sad fact. I grew fast, and especially because of my chest, I was out of the children's section long before I stopped being a child. And thanks to my poor eating habits, my precocious growing continued. Before I discovered Lane Bryant, and before my local Old Navy went plus-sized, I lived in the elastic athletic shorts and t-shirts that are the Florida fat girl's solace. But even when I started shopping at Lane Bryant, a store which makes a fabulous effort to approximate current fashion trends, I was painfully aware that I literally didn't fit in normal stores. Buying cute clothes has been the best part of my weight loss journey so far, and I can't wait to get to my normal healthy weight so that I can shop almost anywhere without feeling embarrassed, and feel cute and feminine in a way I haven't been able to for years. 

3. I want to lose weight because I want to be healthy. I'm sure at least someone will read this with cynicism, and suggest that his reason ought to be at the top of my list, and I would agree with them. Certainly I have tried to keep my focus in this journey on attaining overall better health (rather than just losing weight), and developing healthy new habits (rather than dieting), because I know that's the key to sustaining my success. I've had a few health problems in the past few years that were, if not caused, at least severely exacerbated by my extra pounds, and I'm anxious to see what my healthy, non-overweight body can do (beginning with running my first 5k in July!) But the fact of the matter is, the abstract goal of becoming healthy wasn't enough, on its own, to motivate me to lose weight. I'm still young, thankfully, and heart problems and diabetes were probably at least a few years in the future. And whenever I got winded walking up too many stairs, or couldn't keep up with friends at the gym, I thought about how nice it would be to be healthy... but that wasn't my number one motivator. If just having better health were enough to motivate us, surely no one would be overweight. But as I attempt to untangle the web of emotions tied into my poor eating habits, I become more and more aware that being emotionally and physically healthy are necessary for me to achieve my physical goal of "thinness." 

In conclusion, despite the fact that I've named by blog "Bikini-Bound," and that my tagline expresses my goal as "getting into a bikini," I'm pretty sure vanity isn't my only motivator (although it's a damned good one). I want to learn to cook. I want to stop spending thousands of dollars a year eating out. I want to stop eating to deal with emotions. And I really want to be a runner. But most importantly, I want to be proud of myself. I know there are overweight people who are proud of themselves. Perhaps they're less shallow than I am... they can derive their self-worth from a million other sources, and they see their bodies as beautiful no matter what. I'd like to have those qualities, but as yet, I don't. My appearance is important to me, and I want to be proud of it. 

And the fact that my appearance is important to me may be more calculating than vain... Because no matter how proud and accepting you are of your body, there will be people who aren't. Our very first impressions of each other are physical, and as an overweight person, I know that I was treated differently than skinny people in many situations--from social settings, like bars,  to professional ones, like job interviews. I'm accepting the cold, hard reality that while appearance isn't everything (especially to me), it's important, and I want, more than anything, to be proud and confident. 

Here's some progress pictures, which I'm hoping will inspire me to buckle down for the next 9 days and do what it takes to achieve my March goal. 

       December 2006 / January 2008 / July 2008(?!?)      

December 2006 / January 2008

I was talking to my Mom this morning on the phone, and she was excited to report that while going through boxes in the garage she'd found an old form from a physical I had in 2000 (when I was 14 and a sophomore in high school). I know from memory that I looked pretty good at that time, although I didn't feel it, and I weighed 171--just ten pounds less than I weigh now. Inspiration is coming from all directions. I just have to ignore the chocolate calling my name. 

Last, but certainly not least: I was tagged by my lovely new acquaintance HappyBlogChick at Look, a fitness blog! to create and post my six-word memoir. This was an assignment I had to do a few years ago in university for a Creative Writing class (although I can't remember what my memoir was then), and I recently heard about them again on NPR. I contemplated my life long and hard over the past day, and drafted quite a few, but I'm settling on this one. 

Always tried 'to be of use.'

The quoted portion comes from my very favorite novel by John Irving, The Cider House Rules, which was turned into a very inferior movie. The main character is an orphan named Homer, raised in an orphanage, and I know that part of the reason I love and identify with the book so much is because I'm adopted. (I'm lucky, however, to have two wonderful parents, although they aren't married to each other.) Anyway, the owner of the orphanage, Dr. Wilbur Larch, is a father-figure for Homer, and his most important expectation of Homer is that he always "be of use." Something about this simple phrase struck a chord in me early on, and I've never forgotten it. I've spent all of my young adult life wondering what it means and trying to figure out how I could "be of use" myself. It's my guiding principle. 

Happy Easter, everyone! Take care of yourselves.