My blog is not Tony Robbins

I feel like I need to issue a warning. 

Let me start by saying that this blog, no matter what else it is, will always be REAL. If you’ve never struggled with the raw emotions, discouragement, despair, ______ (insert fat girl feeling of choice here), etc. that is associated with being significantly overweight and/or trying to lose a significant amount of weight, this blog may not be your favorite.

I’ve been very tempted to stop posting anything negative about the weight loss process, because I don’t want to be a discouragement to anyone, and I don’t want to sound whiny. However. When I read various tales of women who have lost weight, if everything they say about the WL process is all rainbows and sunshine and joy and half marathons, I’m left feeling as though it’s something I could never do. Because in my experience, it’s not all rainbows and sunshine and endless joy, and I have trouble imagining myself running 13.1 miles without dying of a stroke 1/1000^th of the way through. While there are many “ups,” to the whole process of losing a lot of weight, it is hard work, it takes a long freaking time, and there are minutes, hours, days and for some people even weeks or months of feeling down and discouraged over the whole thing.

I got it in my head somehow recently that it is my blog’s job to motivate, challenge and encourage all (three people) who read it, and that I must deal with my struggles privately, hide all of my self-doubt, and only post my thoughts when I have a “win” to share. Well. I’m not going to do that. I started this blog as an outlet for my feelings and emotions as I struggle to lose 100 pounds and learn to treat my body right in the process. That means there are going to be a LOT of struggles to share, and I intend to share them, because that’s the whole point of me writing all of this out.

This blog is for me first and foremost, to muddle through the millions of feelings I experience that I’m pretty sure have made and kept me fat since I was seven years old. But it’s also hopefully relatable to anyone who has ever bawled in a department store dressing room, been called “Moby Dick” by a grade school friend’s older brother, had to buy kids jeans in size “Extra Special,” been forced to eat a popsicle while the rest of her siblings had ice cream cones, been referred to as an “elephant” by those same siblings, preferred giving birth to quadruplets without anesthesia over going to a pool party, or any of the plethora of negative experiences overweight people go through in a lifetime.

There will be plenty of “wins,” big and small, to blog about along the way, but my main goal in blogging is simply to write out the entire emotional and physical experience, good, bad or binge, of dropping 100 lbs. And who knows? When I’m all done, maybe someone else who is struggling, wondering how they’ll ever get to their “After” shot, will read it and find some inspiration to start their own weight loss story.

Bottom line: I might sound like a Negative Nancy at times. I might not be a prime candidate for Motivational Speaker of the Year. I might be seemingly riddled with self-doubt. But gosh darnit, I’m going to be REAL. If you’re not an overweight, emotionally unbalanced nut-case, you may want to run for the hills. (And if you’re a thin woman trying to go from a size small string bikini to a size extra-small string bikini, Google was just trying to be funny.)