Written by Melinda
Thursday, July 24th, 2008
I’m 5′4. I was 251 lbs when I started this journey. Lord, I lived a lie so many years. It’s a good thing those sins are cast into the sea of forgetfulness cause I told people all my obese years that I was big boned. I never knew, and who else knew, I had a tiny bone structure??? (I should have known since at birth I weighed 5 lbs, 4 ozs. but how could I remember) So does that count as a sin if I was ignorant and told lies? Hmmm there is a moral dilemma that we may never answer!
My lowest weight was 116 lbs. As I lay in the emergency room bed during last year’s kidney stone attack, I felt afraid for the first time that my weight might be too low. Now keep in mind that when I looked into the mirror, I still saw Fat Melinda. Skinny Melinda was still coming around very slowly in my mind’s eye, but for the most part, I was still that good ole girl who weighed 251. So as I laid there on the hospital gurney, I thought “If I were to get sick, Lord forbid, but if I did, I have no body fat to live on.” I told Tim that day in the room that I was scared and needed to gain some weight. Who on earth says that after losing so much?
The scales continued to be my god until just a few months ago… each day whether I was happy or sad in my journey was determined by the magic number. 118, 119, 123, 121, 118, up and down up and down. I knew that if it ever got up to 125, oh my heavens! We would surely have a major catastrophe on our hands! And then we must surely break out the protein shakes for a major 3 day liquid protein train!
Recently, my weight has shifted from 121 as the low, 125 as the high. Once when I was VERY constipated, it was 127. OH Heavens! But I was ok. I was calm.. I was not worried. I felt great. I even like my bumps and curves. I like my new blue jeans. I like my clothes fitting well now. I don’t have gaps in the backs of my pants at the band because they actually FIT good.
Why do I share this? Because I want you to know that sometimes things swing the other direction. We can actually lose a little too much and need to gain a little. I am right in the center of where my bmi needs to be for healthy. Before it was on the low side. Not unhealthy, just low. But now my head has mostly caught up with my body and I can almost see myself as thin… at times I don’t FEEL thin but that’s another story entirely!
