I really shouldn't be surprised, it was an inevitably, my weight I lost has mostly piled back on.
As you can see I now look like the 'before' in the before/after transformation photo. The photo on the left was taken in March last year and the recent photo on the right was taken last week on my birthday.
If I'm honest I'm not surprised. I've lost weight before and piled it back on. I'd just hoped that this time I'dve sustained it better. At the start of last year I was in a pretty good place, I'd lost about 27 kilos (about 4 stone I think), was eating well and walking a lot but it just all slipped away. Whilst I pointed out in a blog at the time I didn't feel mentally any better for being thinner I didn't feel as disgusted with myself on a day to day basis as I do now.
A lot of the problem is of course comfort eating, and this has ramped right up with the lockdown taking away everything that I'm looking forward to (No concerts, all my airshows are cancelled, the Lammas festival that I was excited to be a part of is also cancelled). Now the only thing I might have to look forward to is the chocolate squirreled away. Even as I eat it I feel ashamed at my lack of willpower.
Part of me says "well you did try and top yourself only a few months ago, cut yourself some slack", another part (my inner addict I would assume) "it's fine, you can stop whenever you want" and the largest (no pun intended) part rails against my lack of willpower shouting at me as I try to get to sleep at night about how weak I am and gross I look.
And my default feeling about myself is disgust at how far I've slipped back. I feel sick looking down at myself, the rolls that have reappeared, the jeans that are getting tighter and tighter. There is also a weary lack of surprise, a part of me that knew even when I'd lost all those kilos that it was only temporary, that I was only a bag of Twirl Bites away from falling off the wagon. And I was right.
There are so many popular sayings about body imagine and diet "nothing looks as good as skinny feels", "only you can control what goes in your mouth" (I wish more people could control what comes out of their mouths!) etc etc but shocker they don't help. I already feel ashamed enough of how I look and for letting the people who were so proud of my weight loss down. Meeting back up with friends who I haven't seen for a good few months is embarrassing because of how much I've ballooned, I am the proverbial elephant in the room.
It's easy to declare that I don't care about how I look, true in a way with my lack of effort with hair and makeup nowadays, or to use my fat as a shield to fade into the background. No-one is going to notice the fat goth next to all the pretty, interesting people!
I'd love for this blog to end on a declaration of intent to change up my life, ditch the chocolate, run 5k every day but we all know that it's bullshit.
Love in fattiness Jen
XxxX
