I’m overweight and I’m not unique-there are over 90 million Americans that are struggling with their weight as well. With millions of us in the same boat, you’d think this journey wouldn’t have felt so isolating, but it did. I felt like I wasn’t in the same boat, but rather, I was regulated to a dark and lonely hole-filled rowboat. A rowboat that needed to hide in the shadows so no one, not even myself, could see it as it slowly sunk to the bottom. I didn’t want to be seen, because being seen meant that I would have to acknowledge it, it being the elephant in the room, aka me.

I tentatively pull on a shirt that’s 5 sizes smaller than what I was wearing just minutes ago and it fits. I stare at myself in disbelief. It fits. It actually fits. I glance down at what I had been jokingly calling my “bag lady” clothes flummoxed. In my mind, those “bag lady” clothes still fit, they were just a little roomy and my mind can’t process that the shirt I pulled on somehow fits too. It almost feels like some weird “Sisterhood Of The Traveling Pants” moment, with the exception that it’s my body and not a pair of jeans.

Then the tears and feelings of unworthiness start. You see, when I had this moment, it was a mere 8 days after I had a mini gastric bypass procedure in Mexico. I had been prepared for rapid weight loss & potential emotional moments post-surgery, but I somehow had discounted and ignored the 65 pounds I had lost prior to going to Mexico. While I intrinsically knew my body was different, in my mind, I was still at my starting weight.

People were telling me how proud they were and that I was doing such a great job, but in reality I just felt like a big fat fraud. The first 30lbs or so that I lost? It wasn’t because I was “trying” to lose weight, I was actually suffering with an almost 4 month long covid side-effect that caused my throat to swell. It was harder and sometimes painful to eat, so I stopped eating as much. I didn’t stop eating & drinking the things that contributed towards my weight gain, I essentially was starving myself.  Eventually, my body got used to being starved, so when I finally started a specially tailored bariatric diet, my body didn’t mind. I lost those first 30ish pounds in such an unhealthy manner I felt I couldn’t take credit for them, and the transition to my new diet was so remarkably easy it didn’t feel like I was doing something worthy of praise either.

So how did I become this “elephant” in the room and why am I sharing now? My story starts over 20 years ago and I’m sharing now because I hope that maybe my story might help someone else who is also going through what I went through. It also doesn’t hurt that when I write my feelings down it also helps me process what I’m going through.

You’d be So Pretty If…

Almost all of my life I’ve felt haunted by the words “you’d be so pretty if…” followed by some sort of phrase that was designed to make me feel shame about the way I looked.  It may not have always been exactly “you’d be so pretty,” but the expressions were similar enough to be interchangeable. I’ve heard:

You’d be so pretty if you…

• Just lost some weight
• Tried a little harder
• Watched what you ate better
• Tried exercising
• Gave up soda.
• Joined weight watchers

And the list goes on. I’ve let these “observations” live in my head rent-free for years. Take, for example, an incident that happened over 15 years ago. I was on a trip with a couple of girlfriends, and the organizer also invited a few male friends to join us. One of those male friends made the comment, “You’d be so hot if you just lost some weight.” This was followed by my girlfriends agreeing with him: “You’re so pretty Crystal, but you’d be stunning if you just lost a couple of pounds.” At the time I was a curvy size 12.

Over the years, I learned to condition myself to pretend like those phrases didn’t bother me. I tried not to act like the stereotypical “fat girl.” The girl who always complained about her weight to prevent the eventual shaming that would follow, (i.e., “you did it to yourself,” “you just need to learn some self-control,” etc). Yet as the years went by, it seemed that nothing halted my slow descent towards morbid obesity. Yes, the personal trainers, gym memberships, weight-loss pills, and diets helped slow my descent, but they never seemed to halt it.

How It All Started

However, my story started prior to that trip. It started with family and the comments about what I ate and how I looked. The praise and compliments I received when I was thinner that slowly tapered off as I got larger. I’m not going to dive too deeply into my past here, however, there is one very big issue that started in my childhood that vastly contributed towards my weight gain: ADHD. One of the bad parts of not being diagnosed with ADHD as a child is that it led towards me developing two eating disorders: binge eating disorder and rumination syndrome. Studies have shown individuals with ADHD are 5 times more likely to have binge eating disorder due to issues with impulsive behavior/eating. Eventually, the binge eating disorder and anxiety led towards me developing rumination syndrome. Sadly, these eating disorders were something I wasn’t diagnosed with until the last couple of years and have taken significant time and work to deal with.

It wasn’t until college, and shortly thereafter that my weight started getting out of control more quickly. I had a few traumatic events that led towards massive depression and infertility issues, during which I started gaining weight more rapidly. Then I became pregnant (twice!), and between the pregnancy weight gain/bed rest/mom-life, the focus became my children, and it was easy to ignore that my weight was steadily increasing. I slowly let my life as a mom become all-consuming because it was easier being Everett & Finn’s mom and not “Crystal.” During this time period, I would get comments from my parents about how I was letting “myself go,” but it was easy to brush their concerns off and focus on my boys.

By 2019, I felt like there wasn’t anything I could do that would truly stop and reverse my weight-gain. I decided to try and pretend like it didn’t exist. I decided to preach body positivity, find clothes that looked cute in my size, and celebrate the “all bodies are beautiful” movement. In reality, though, I was just lying to myself and others. I didn’t let anyone know my secret shame- I hated my body. I learned to stop looking in mirrors and either not be in or hide behind people in photos. I stopped talking about all things involving my weight and instead worked on boosting others’ body confidence. All of my negative body thoughts and comments about my weight were shoved into a mental box and put way up high on a shelf my little t-rex arms couldn’t reach.

At the start of 2020, I had a friend who had gone through weight-loss surgery, (WLS), the previous year. I watched her transition carefully-she looked fabulous and felt amazing. Then, my parents offered me money towards a WLS procedure, and I decided that this was an option I needed to seriously consider. I was just about to commit to it when the Covid pandemic hit.

The pandemic hit all of us a little differently, but 2 of the most common side effects from being isolated, weight-gain & depression, also hit our household. I kept my secret body shame close to me though. I would have friends offer to walk with me, join weight watchers, etc, but I would politely brush them off, knowing if I committed to that with them I would have to face that secret body shame box I had “hidden” so well.

Facing My Secret Shame

Finally, in 2022, I made the choice that I was finally going to take the plunge and get my WLS done. To say the people around me were shocked would be an understatement. One friend even made the comment, “When you said you were going to have WLS, I was shocked. You never talk about your weight or have given any indication you were unhappy with it.”

That was kind of the point though. I didn’t want to talk about and acknowledge the fact that by summer 2022 I had reached my highest weight- a resounding 386 pounds. I was shopping for clothes that were 5x and occasionally 6x. My options for “cute” clothes were starting to get extremely limited. What all of my critics about getting this procedure done didn’t know is that this wasn’t some snap decision. They made comments about how dangerous it was and about my level of commitment to such a drastic procedure. They told me I was basically going to kill myself because I wanted some “hot body.” That I needed to spend my money on things like “Weight Watchers” and “personal trainers.”

What my critics didn’t do is ask me WHY I was doing what I was doing. They didn’t ask about what I had done to prepare, what my plans were for aftercare, etc. They just made assumptions. Those assumptions hurt more deeply than I’m willing to admit. As I said before, this wasn’t a snap decision. I had been planning this for years and had been doing significant research on my options. They didn’t understand this was something that I was doing for my family and, most importantly, myself. I wanted to be able to go on hikes with my family, play soccer with my boys, go on bike rides, heck even walk up my driveway without sounding like I had climbed Mount Everest. I was ready to reclaim my body and sense of identity. I wanted to rediscover myself and be more than just “Everett & Finn’s mom.”

Surgery Time!!

I originally wrote a very detailed section here that described not only how the experience was leading up to my surgery, but why I chose to do the things the way I did and what it was like. After writing it, it became apparent that it would be much better suited for a standalone blog. You can find it here: All Roads (Planes) Lead To Mexico .

The Box Falls Off The Shelf

I flew into San Diego for my surgery on January 18th and a driver, provided by the clinic I was working with picked us up to take us across the border. My surgery was early the next morning. I spent January 19th and 20th recovering in their medical suite. In the wee hours of the morning on the 21st, I was released and scheduled to fly home. My only regret? Not booking a room for an extra night. Those flights home were miserable!

Once I was back home, I spent the weekdays with my MIL, trying to keep moving and slowly testing the waters for what my body could/couldn’t handle. I wasn’t hungry per se, I just wanted the flavor and texture of food in my mouth. I didn’t want to actually swallow it though. I jokingly compared it to the scene in Madagascar where the Zebra serves the other animals saltwater drinks that are intended to be spit out.

While she was here, we also went into a local consignment store. They were having a killer sale, so I grabbed a few smaller sized clothing items for when I would be able to fit into them. Upon returning home, I tentatively tried on one shirt to see how much further I had to go before I’d fit into it.

IT FIT.

My brain couldn’t wrap around the fact that this shirt that was 4 sizes smaller than what I had just taken off actually fit. I quickly pulled the clothes off, saying I needed to be in looser clothing to give my incisions some space. The next day I tried on a different shirt with a pair of pants that I hadn’t been able to fit into for almost 5 years. The jeans were so roomy that I could basically slide them off my body with a gentle tug. I also quickly took them off in favor of my “bag lady” clothes.

Fast forward to Saturday morning. I was alone in my house for the first time since I had surgery. Everyone else was at the airport, dropping my MIL off for her flight back home. On a whim, I pulled out a shirt I had received from a smaller sized friends wardrobe. It was a size 17 in juniors, so I knew there was no way my body would fit into it, yet somehow it did. Then I tried on something that was an extra large, and holy cow, it fit too.

I broke down sobbing, every emotion hitting me at once.

That box that I had shoved all of my negative body thoughts into? It had hit me resoundingly on top of my head. Those feelings of guilt, fraud, disbelief, etc., that I mentioned above crashed over me like a tidal wave. I called up a friend sobbing that I didn’t think I could get rid of my bag lady clothes, but if I didn’t, how would I be able to get new clothes that “fit”? I called up another friend who could hear the trembling breaths behind my words, and she quickly came over to listen to me as I sobbed.

Over the weekend, I spoke with several friends, including my mother, about the box hitting me on my head. The advice they gave and the listening to me as I processed my feelings was invaluable. However, I still had a major issue- myself.

Facing Myself

I realized that Monday morning, I had avoided looking at my body so long that I didn’t even know what I looked like anymore. I needed to see for myself. I needed to see what my new body looked like. I needed to see that my bag lady clothes truly didn’t fit. I needed to see my new clothes on my body.

On a last-minute whim, I contacted a friend who is also a photographer, aka Jami Tatum Photography. I knew that she would be able to handle my erratic emotional state and capture the images I needed with tact and gentleness. Despite being busy that morning, she quickly came to my rescue and readily understood what and why I needed to see myself.

I won’t lie- even though her photos of me were amazing, I still immediately honed into the things I disliked about my body. However, I expected that knee-jerk response. I knew these photos were my first step towards self-acceptance and love. I pulled up photos of myself from the previous year and compared them. Looking between them, I could finally start to understand and accept that I had lost weight prior to surgery. The elephant in the room was actually shrinking.

The Fat Shaming Epidemic

Our country has an obesity problem, but worst of all, it has an obesity shaming problem. Most of us “elephants” are aware of and know we are overweight; we don’t need someone to point out just how unhealthy we are. As a matter of fact, when you point it out, most of us end up gaining more weight and start developing more health issues. And I’m not just talking about friends and family, I’m talking about every single person that treats us like it is a personal failing, rather than a disease. None of us made the conscious decision to become this way.

This is especially true when it comes to our healthcare providers. Research has shown that on average, doctors not only spend less time with overweight patients, they also treat them with less sympathy, overlook potential non-weight related medical problems, and some even refuse to see overweight patients at all. Those that do see us, often don’t provide adequate solutions for how to lose the weight. There is a lack of actionable dieting advice and a lot of them just tend to shove pills our way. Some believe this tough love approach will shame us enough to fix the problem, but in reality, it pushes the majority of us away.

We stop going to the doctor and ignore easy to fix health problems until it’s a life-or-death emergency. As a matter of fact, this issue has gotten so bad, that those studies showing diseases like ovarian cancer are more lethal when you’re overweight have been skewed. Because a lot of overweight women put off going into the doctor for so long, their issues tend to have progressed to the point where treatment isn’t always going to fix the issue. And if you’re a minority it’s way worse. Don’t believe me? There is proven evidence that the fat shaming stigma is actually causing more issues than being fat.

The US Healthcare System is barbaric and ineffectual. It is failing millions of people and it feels like there is no solution in sight. I tried off and on for years to lose weight. It was a nightmare that left me with a host of body image and health issues. My healthcare providers completely missed that I had two eating disorders, prescribed pills that were unhealthy, and made me feel inadequate, not only in their office, but also in my own body. It didn’t make me any thinner or healthier, instead it led to me to feeling like a failure and gave me anxiety about returning for additional healthcare.

Skinny Girl Bucket List

It’s easy to build up resentment and anger over how many signs and flags were missed about my weight gain, but I have come to the conclusion that it’s not doing me any favors. I would rather focus on the steps I’m taking to take back my life, happiness, and body. There are so many things I let my weight interfere with and I am ready to put an end to sacrificing my joy. I jokingly created what I have deemed my “Skinny Girl Bucket List.” All of the silly things that I told myself I couldn’t do because I was too fat. Things like learning to scuba dive, goat yoga, rock climbing, and pole dancing lessons. Heck, I am even planning on going bikini shopping for the first time this summer. I am ready to live my life and celebrate the hard work that I have and will continue to put in.

Taking these steps are hard, but they are worth it. I am worth it.