My Why

Okay it's been way too long since I've had a new entry.  I just haven't had anything to share but now I do.  I'm sure that most people would agree that weight loss is one of the hardest things you will ever do in your life.  I've lost 100 pounds and I've gained 60 of those pounds back.  Why?  I've been asking myself this question a lot lately.

First, I'm asking myself what is my why for wanting to lose weight.  There are so many things that losing weight can help with but I feel like there is a more important reason why.  I just can't put my finger on it but I feel it.  While I think more on that let's go through all of the "things" that weight loss can do for me.

• I would love to be able to sit in one airplane seat without a seat belt extender.  When I think of that it makes my heart happy. 
• The cardiologist said that I need to.  One of my fears is having heart problems at a young age like others in my family.  The cardiologist said my arteries are not shaped right which is why I have to have better than good blood work and I need to work out at least 45 minutes every day.
• I want to be able to climb a rock wall.
• I've secretly always wanted to be a runner.  I'm not sure if my knees could take running but I'd at least like to know that I can do it.
• I love physical challenges.  I don't want my weight to limit what I can do.  Yes, some of them are limits I put on myself but others are weight limits.  I want to eliminate weight from being a reason I can't or won't do something. 
• I believe that there is something I'm supposed to do with my life that the weight is holding me back from.  I think a big part of this is that I'm afraid to put myself out there because the world is not kind to overweight people. 
• I love hiking.  Right now when I hike everything hurts.  It's not the enjoyable experience it once was.  I get winded easily.  I feel weighed down.  I want to be able to enjoy being out in nature and know that I can try any hike.
• I want to try down hill skiing.  I don't want to hurt myself and I feel like I would if I tried it now.
• I don't want weight to be the reason I injure myself. 

There are others but the most important reason I want to lose weight is because I feel like there is something I'm supposed to learn from doing so that will help me with what I'm supposed to do in my life.  When I was asking myself why I want to lose weight another why popped into my head.  "Why do I hate myself so much".  Every time I start to have success with weight loss I get angry.  It feels like the weight is my punishment. I've been asking myself why.

"I don't feel like I'm a good person." Why?  I've made so many mistakes in my life.  I feel like if I had made different choices then life would have been different.  What do I regret?

• That nothing can be fixed with my mom.  I was hurt that she left me when I was younger.  I didn't ask her to stay.  I can acknowledge that I didn't ask her to stay because I wanted her to have a better life but I could handle her leaving.  I still remember the feeling of her leaving.  It felt like my heart was breaking.  I couldn't handle what I was feeling and I chose to turn my back on her and God.  I still remember that day like it was yesterday.  I swore I'd never cry over her again.  The only way I could get through it was not to feel so I also turned my back on God.  It's probably the decision I regret the most.  I feel like I killed a piece of my soul.  In turning my back on her I lost my chance to fix things with her before she died.  Because of my anger and my hurt I never got the chance to tell her I loved her.  I never got the chance to tell her I forgive her for leaving and to ask for forgiveness for my negative feelings towards her.  I know that she was a good person and I shouldn't have let my hurt and anger cloud my judgment.  I've thought horrible things about her and it's not right.  I love her and I couldn't get past my hurt to just tell her that.  She died without knowing that I loved her.   
• I turned my back on God.  Since finding my way back to Heavenly Father I realize how much that decision to turn my back on Him changed my life.  I know what I experienced was a spiritual death.  I felt dead inside.  I felt like I had no hope, no peace and that is on me.  I made that choice.
• I didn't go back and tell my grandma I loved her even though I felt that I should have.  I remember that day clearly too.  I was leaving her hospital room and as I was walking away I had the thought that I needed to go back and tell her I loved her.  I didn't do it.  I said I'd just do in next time.  There was no next time.  She died before I saw her again.  I feel like I was a bad granddaughter.  I stopped going to see her. Partly because it was hard to see her like that.  It was hard to see her begging to die but a bigger part of the reason I stopped going is because I didn't feel like going.  I wanted to stay home and do my own thing while she was in the hospital fighting for her life.  I didn't know.  She had been in the hospital so many times before and she had always come home.  I thought she would be home.  I didn't understand that she was dying.  I hope she understands how much I love her and how sorry I am for not seeing her when I had the chance.  I regret not going back and telling her I loved her.  I hope she knows that.
• My choices are part of the reason my dad left.  He was getting divorced for the second time and he came to see my at my grandma's and grandpa's house.  He asked me where I wanted to live.  My sister said with grandma and grandpa so I said with grandma and grandpa even though I desperately wanted to go with him.  The truth is I was scared and I didn't want to be without my sister.  She was always the braver one and I felt better knowing she was around. I acknowledge that he was the adult and that was a choice he should have never asked a 7 year old to make but it was MY decision.  I've told him I feel like with that decision he got his feelings hurt and he left.  He said he agrees with that.  I never meant to hurt him.  I was just afraid to be without my sister.  I love him so much and I feel like this decision is why we don't have a good relationship now. 
• I let people convince me that I wasn't good enough. That there was something wrong with me.  I didn't stand up for myself.  I didn't fight back.  I just accepted what they said as the truth.  For this I feel like I deserved to be unhappy.  I believed that my mom was a loser because I was told that.  I believed that nobody wanted me because that is what I was told.  I didn't question it. I just accepted it.  That's on me.
• I was afraid to speak up.  All I wanted was to feel that my mom, dad, grandma, and grandpa loved me.  I never asked my mom not to leave.  I never told her that I loved her.  I told my dad I didn't want to live with him when that was a lie.  If I had just said something maybe things would have been different. 
• I never accepted my grandpa as my dad until I was much older.  I accepted any attention my dad would give me and I didn't really appreciate at the time that my grandpa took me into his home and was doing the best he could. All I saw was that he didn't want me because that's what he told me.  I believed his words and ignored his actions.  Grandma always said that actions speak louder than words.  His actions proved that he did love me but I couldn't see it.  I feel like me wanting to be with my dad got in the way of my relationship with my grandpa.  If I had seen things clearly and realized that my dad didn't know how to be a parent maybe I would have had a better relationship with my grandpa.  Did he think I didn't love him and appreciate him?  I was hurt by the words he said so I distanced myself from him.  Yes, he was wrong for the things he said but I can see now that he was in over his head.  He never had to raise my mom and aunt and he had no idea how to raise teenage girls.
• I chose myself over Carrie.  I stood by and let Mary scream in Carrie's face that nobody wanted her.  That wasn't true.  I love Carrie and I wanted her to be happy but I chose myself over her.  I could have told my grandpa that I would take Carrie but I didn't want to make sacrifices.  I didn't want to give up college.  I didn't want to have to worry about how to take care of her.  I stood by and said nothing.  I know how it feels to have someone yell that nobody wants you, yet I stood by and said nothing.  What kind of person does that?  A weak person.  Maybe if I would have said that's wasn't true that I wanted her things would be different for her.  I should have protected her and I did nothing. 
• I made other people's actions okay by hating myself.  My mom and dad both chose to walk away.  I couldn't hate them because I loved them so much so I had to make it my fault.  I acknowledge I made wrong choices I regret but they were the adults.  I made their choices okay by telling myself over and over again that I deserved for them to leave because I was stupid, ugly, unlovable, that I deserved to be alone.  I did that.  Okay, yes my grandma and grandpa helped that by telling me that nobody wanted me but I believed them.  I never questioned it.  I didn't know until recently that my mom tried to come back for me.  My dad wouldn't let her.  He said that if she tried he would take us away from my grandparents.  I heard that straight from his mouth.  Who does that?...  I don't know how to undo decades worth of self hate.

My biggest obstacle to weight loss isn't my issues with other people it's my issues with myself.  I was able to forgive my parents and grandparents but I haven't been able to forgive myself. 

Why to I want to lose weight?  To stop punishing myself for choices and decisions that I should have never had to make.  The weight might has started out as a bad coping mechanism but I've always felt that it turned into my punishment.  My proof that I wasn't good enough. That I wasn't lovable. That I was every bad thing I told myself I was. It's what my family harped on. 

Losing weight isn't about a number on a scale, it's about forgiving myself.  It's about loving myself enough to stop hurting myself. To stop punishing myself.  It's about understanding that I did the best I could with the situation I was in.  It's knowing that I can trust myself.  This is why I want to lose weight.