Monday, May 21, 2007

Picture Perfect

Had our photos taken last Sunday for the new church directory. Warning bells going off anyone? We got the proofs this Sunday. We also had a potluck dinner for the Graduates. Louder warning bells? Pictures and potluck. Could there be a more rapid road to ruin? Yes I looked fat. I was shocked. I had thought I looked thinner. I looked like a toad. A big toad. It was just like old times. Just like I had lost no weight at all. I began to eat. I ate until I fell into bed Sunday night. I am okay this morning.

I am incredibly sad. The chimera of thinnitude is gone. I am fat. I have lost some weight but I am still fatter than normal. I had deceived myself into believing I looked normal. I don't. I guess this was/is a good lesson. I even volunteered to get this picture taken. We dressed up and everything. Truth is always better than lies. And Hagen Daz lies.

We go this weekend to see and old friend. Her daughter is getting married. Tammi and I go way back. We were fat teenagers together. She still outweighs me by a bunch. I don't really want to see, as in look at, her any more than she wants to look at me. We have been waltzing around this issue per phone for a month. I wanted to look thin before she saw me. Why? I know it will make her feel awful. But it would have made me feel good. Like I really had lost weight. The look on her face would have validated my weight loss. I love Tammi and do not want to hurt her. And I want to feel thin. If she thought I looked thin, then I really was thin. This convoluted thinking unraveled at the first glimpse of those stinking pictures. We are both still fat.

I am trying to make peace with my continuing girth. But it ain't easy. I have switched wedding outfits. I am not reverting to my jumper, but my formish fitting Easter dress is staying home. (I wore this for the pictures. I did not look "hot". See Easter post.) I am taking loose fitting clothing. I think I am relieved. Now I do not have to carry off the whole "new me' thing. Is much easier to be the old fat me. I am pissed off about being relieved. I want to be the "new me." I don't want to look like Paris Hilton, but I have had it with being a tubby matron. Matron okay, tubby, not. So what to do?

I am back to the tried and true food plan until after we get home, and then it's Atkins and Curves. This for three weeks will get me off the dreaded 181. Then...we'll see. I think my body is used to weighing 181. It is happy here, but I'm not. I am going to give 145 another shot. I may indeed have to learn to love 181 but NOT YET.

Take care of yourselves. Love Bea.

4 comments:

Cindy said...

I know how you feel about pictures. I am never fully prepared for what I see. I expect a thinner me. For me photos are worse than dressing room mirrors. You may warm up to the pictures after a while. You may not be where you want to be yet, but it is nice to have a picture of where you are today. Someday I will get a digital of the "lysol lady" photo of me and post it. Long story. For another day. hang in there. And enjoy your visit.

Anonymous said...

I know that feeling. I've worked so hard, and I FEEL so much thinner. I should look like Kate Moss, but I see pictures, or go shopping and I don't. It's very disappointing.

Deirdre

PS don't forget the camera adds ten pounds.

Debra said...

Self contempt, self recrimination and rejection of the self is the real weight I'm trying to lose, but it's hard when faced with something we consider reality, i.e., a picture. But, why is a picture such a reliable indicator of what you look like? It can't capture mood, mobility, shifting expressions -- all the things that make up what you "really" look like. I bet you looked beautiful in that outfit. Pictures may not lie but sometimes our self perception does.

BigAssBelle said...

i remember my stepdaughter's wedding 5-6 years ago. i felt absolutely beautiful and got compliments all night. it's telling, i think, that the photographers, there to capture the beautiful young things in the gorgeous setting, mostly skipped me. a few stills with the husband reveal an immense, almost square woman in a beautiful dress, looking like she's in pain (i was, from being on my feet, i could barely walk at that point).

my husband still tells me it is a beautiful picture. i leave it out because it reminds me of where i've come from.

i am way fatter than you, actually have 181 as a goal. but it's all in our heads, really. i am not convinced your eating disordered eyes are getting an accurate view of that woman in the photo. i don't trust my own eyes, no matter what they tell me, good or bad.

i can't trust eyes that tell me i'm gorgeous at 190 in those photos taken after a huge weight loss, when the same 190 looked moose-sized when i was on the way up.

photos capture an instant in time and miss the vitality and magic that is an animated you. please don't beat up on yourself for too long. it's debilitating to the spirit within and creates another wound to eat at.

big hugs, lynette