Tired of bitching....sort of.

I am done. Done wallowing in this nastiness. And I can prove it too. I pulled out the stationary bike, set it up in the living room, and did 15:10 minutes today. I probably could have done 20 if my ass hadn't been as sore as the day I thought I could sass my Nanny in front of my Papa when I was 6 years old. That thing might have a maximum capacity of 350lbs (I didn't break it, so they underestimated the number) but that seat was not made for a person with an ample....well, seat.

I know I could walk, but I can't bring myself to walk here in my neighborhood, or anywhere else in public for that matter. Call me vain, whatever. I did find a church here in town with a walking track in their gym/family center. I emailed the lady to ask about a walking club they have there. Hopefully I can participate without being sucked into the cult that is the southern methodist church congregation.

Now, before I get trashed for not believing, I do believe. I am a very spiritual person, But, IMHO spirituality and religion are not one and the same.

I can't really do a lot about the food situation as we are digging out of a financial hole and at the moment we are B-R-O-K-E. But one step at a time. Here I go.

BTW, Anyone know a good website to show good form with free weights? I have some 3 lb (shush, I'm a sissy) dumbbells, but I'm afraid I'll do something wrong since I've never done weights before. I'm hoping at least to tone up my upper arms for a wedding in December in which I am the Maid of Honor(more on this problem later).

Thanks for reading
Bean

A not so short history of my weight gain.

My son's seventh birthday is today. Wow! I can't believe my baby is seven. He is so smart and so handsome. I couldn't be prouder. I love that boy more than words can say. However, overshadowing my pride in my son is my disgust at myself....and what I have become in those seven years.

I have been heavy for as long as I can remember, and I mean that literally. I've seen pictures of myself at five or six years old where I was what you'd call normal, but I don't remember ever being that way. Normal I mean. I struggled with this all my life. I was that girl in school that everyone made fun of. Now, I know that EVERYONE was laughed at at one time or another, but I was that girl daily. Always excluded from everything. Never asked to participate in anything, ever. I didn't have a "friend" at all until 5th grade. And, to tell you the truth, we could barely tolerate each other. But we were both outcasts, so we stuck together. I haven't spoken to her since we started junior high in 6th grade and she had transformed herself into one of the popular kids over the summer.

Junior high wasn't much better, but I managed. I actually met a few girls who accepted me. I suppose at 12 I weighed about 200lbs. At 5'6" I was big, but not huge....yet. I ate my way through junior high and started my freshman year in high school at 5'8" and weighing in at 250lbs give or take 5 lbs. I didn't last long. The 2 or 3 girlfriends that got me through junior high weren't in any of my classes so it was like starting all over, and I couldn't hack it. I turned 16 that January, and by February, I had convinced my mother to withdraw me from school. She said I had until my eighteenth birthday to hand her my G.E.D. or move out. She got it a month after my 17th birthday.

I tell this story because in the year it took me to get that G.E.D. I grew up a lot. I got comfortable with myself and who I was. I wasn't exactly thrilled about my body at 250 lbs, but I didn't spend every waking hour waiting for the ground to open up and swallow me either. I started to actually live my life. I met my (now ex) husband, got married and started college(I only finished 2 semesters but that's another blog). I was barely 18 when we got married(again, another blog, lol). At 19, in December of 1999, I found out we were pregnant. I was ecstatic! I had been concerned that maybe because of my weight and irregular cycle that I couldn't conceive.

I weighed 254lbs at my first OB appointment. I was at 266lbs at my last one. I only gained 12lbs during the entire pregnancy. Don't worry, he was full term and 6lbs4oz. The Dr. said it was quite common for a "heavyset"(God, I loved that doctor) woman to lose fat in their own bodies while the baby gains weight. I was so relieved. I was completely comfortable in my body at 250lbs. I could walk, run, go anywhere, do anything I wanted to do. My weight didn't stop me from living my life. I took my brand new baby, and a shot of Depo-Provera in the arm, and went home.

I don't know if it was the Depo-Provera, the lack of sleep and time to take care of myself, the stress on my marriage at the time, still eating for two, my failure at breastfeeding, or a combination thereof, but here I am seven years later at at least 350lbs. My son is the boy with the fat mommy. Right now, it doesn't matter, but I know as he gets older, it will be an issue with the other kids at school. I've never yo-yo dieted, I've bought lots of weight loss crap(6 week body makeover, 'breathing' cardio, etc.) but I never so much as get them out of the box. I do have the Walkaway the Pounds for Abs video set, and I used it about twice. I still have it and I actually dug it out yesterday, but I haven't put it in the VCR yet.

I just want to be able to live my life again. I want to be able to volunteer at my son's school without being afraid of embarrassing him. I want to sit in the stands and cheer him on at his baseball games without worrying about people staring at me. I want my son to be proud that I am his mother.

Thanks for reading
Bean

Brutal Honesty

I am horribly lazy. I am the complete stereotypical fat girl. I'm completely depressed, lazy as hell, and I don't take care of myself. I am ashamed of it, terribly ashamed. And yet, here I am. I did absolutely nothing today. I spent most of my day either dozing on the couch, or stuffing my face with crap. This house is so disgusting that if company called and told me they were on their way to my house, I'd end up in a full blown panic attack.

What really kills me, is the fact that I really have no right to be this way. My life might not be a 24/7 party, but I have it pretty good. I have a man who loves me more than I probably deserve. I have my boys. I have a roof over my head, and people in my life that love me dearly. And yet....here I am, wallowing in self pity. Poor me, the sad lazy fat girl.

I have been sitting here trying to talk myself out of erasing everything I just typed. It's so much easier to put on the smile like I do in real life. But, that won't get me anywhere. One of my girlfriends says I just need some motivation. Well, I wish I knew where to get some that didn't wear off before I even got started. I get all gung ho and figure out exactly what to do and then I DON'T DO IT! I suppose I'm still contemplating all of it. I just feel sometimes like I'm stuck in this loop that never ends.

I promise, I'm not always this negative. Although I have been in this particular funk for quite awhile.

Thanks for reading
Bean

My Dad.

Well, I usually wouldn't start out by talking about my dad, but he called me today. I hadn't heard from him in almost a year. Thanksgiving, Christmas, his birthday, my birthday, fathers day, and countless other important dates have passes since I last heard from him. In all actuality, he lives about 10 minutes from me, and I bet he hasn't seen my son in at least 2 years. I don't usually think about my relationship with him a lot. He is very withdrawn from life and depressed, and it's hard to maintain a relationship with him and not fall into the same habits. I start to call, then I feel like an ass cause it's been so long since I last called, so I don't. He and I go back and forth about who should call who. It makes absolutely no sense to me, but we do it all the time.

This is where I decide just how personal I want to get with this blog.....My father is an alcoholic. He is also Transgendered. He believes he should have been born a woman. I'm not really sure how I feel about this because I've never let myself digest it emotionally. I am the only person in our family that does not automatically judge him for it. No one, not even his own mother, can accept it. Most of the family thinks he is some sort of sick pedophile pervert, which is not the case. I can deal with it from a logical standpoint, but I am very detached from it.

My fathers sobriety has always been more important than his gender to me. I have seen him struggle with alcohol all of my life. He was never a violent or angry drunk, but he wasn't exactly fun to be around either. It's one of the things that makes me thankful that my parents divorced when I was two. I think it would have been a lot harder if I had had to deal with an alcoholic parent day in and day out instead of every other weekend.

Unfortunately, at this point in his life, he is living off his retirement and it isn't going well. He's very solitary, never goes out, and I think the only person he ever really talks to is me, and as I said earlier, that isn't much. I don't mean to isolate him from my life, but there are lots of complications. For one, he still drinks. You never really know what kind of mood he will be in till you get there, and I swore I would never let my son see what I had to see as a child. Secondly, there is the gender thing. My dad wants to someday have an operation to become a woman, however, because his alcoholism has kept him from keeping a job, he does not now, and will probably never have the ability to do so. He does his best to live as a woman. He dresses as a woman, and on the rare occasion that he does go out, he does so as a woman. The problem is that, well, there is no nice way to say this, he doesn't pull it off very well. He hasn't been on his hormones because he can't afford them, and that makes the fact that he is actually male painfully obvious.

Now, this doesn't bother me as far as the rest of the world, but it does make it difficult to explain to my son. Last time he saw my dad, he wasn't old enough to even wonder, but he will be 7 in two days. I don't have the first clue how to explain this to him. Dad said today that if I need him to be sober for us to come see him that he would do that because he really wants to see his grandson. I am fine with that, I think it's awesome! Bot how do I have a conversation with him to explain to him that my dad is basically a woman.

I'm going to close with this. I do not need to hear comments about how you think my father is immoral and evil and going to hell. I respect your opinion and respectfully ask you to but the fuck out :) Other than that, any and all comments and suggestions are welcome.

Thank's for reading and sorry if I blew your mind
Bean

Well, wasn't that cute...

So, I had a cute first post, and then......zip, zilch, nada. Boy am I ever a letdown to the blogging community. :| Honestly, I haven't decided what on earth to blog about. I tend to think I'm more clever than I actually am, which can be dangerous when writing in a public forum.

I recently stumbled upon (or fatefully discovered, or was led by God, depending on your life philosophy) a popular weight loss blog called Half of Me. This spiraled into me devouring months and months of archives to catch up, and a new addiction to blog reading thanks to all the links to the blogs that she herself reads.

Reading about these weight loss journeys has given me a different outlook on my own battle with my weight. I now have hope. It's easy to find someone who has lost 10, 20 or even 50lbs, and that's awesome for them, but quite daunting to a girl who, at 27 years old, and 5'8", weighs in at somewhere over 350lbs. I'd love to give you an actual weight, but scales that go that high are hard to find, expensive, and I'm poor.

I wouldn't go so far as to say I'm going to blog about loosing weight. I don't even have a plan of action yet. But, it's in the works as we speak. I'm one of those people who has to plan and research and figure out a strategy. My best friend would call me out right now and say that I'm stalling. One of the reasons I love her so much....sometimes. :) Anyway, I suppose we shall see what happens!