skinny

I have thought about this a lot lately and really throughout my lifetime. I have been super thin and very overweight and everything in between. Looking back over all those times I realize that no matter what my weight was, I was never totally happy with my appearance because of judgements I placed on myself.

In fact, the only time I can ever really remember loving how I looked was when I was pregnant. I could eat whatever and whenever without judgement. I never had to worry if my stomach looked fat and the feeling of a baby growing inside you is like nothing else. So at my heaviest being pregnant was the happiest that I felt with my body and nobody judges you for your giant belly sticking out. People tell you how cute you are and ask you wonderful baby questions.

I am the thinnest now that I have ever been as an adult. I am 5’9″ and hover around 125 pounds. Borderline underweight. The good part about this is that I can pretty much wear whatever I want to, I can sit in an chair and be comfortable, people compliment me endlessly on how great I look, how skinny I am. So I should be really happy right???

No, because I still see all things that no one else sees. You might look at me and see a size 0 or 2 jeans and an xsmall shirt but I look at myself and I see the loose skin above my calves, the swinging, hanging skin under my arms, the ruined skin on my stomach that is wrinkled and squishy. The wrinkles that are more apparent on my face with weight loss. My thinning hair from lack of proper nutrition.

The thing is that for me at least, I have a “picture” in my mind of what I look like. When I was fat it was shocking to see myself in a picture and realize that I was that big. I never felt that big. Now I walk by a mirror or see myself in a picture and cannot believe how thin I look. And instead of thinking I look great, I look at myself and question wether or not I look sickly.

My point is that you need to learn to love yourself and the way you look no matter what your size. I never place the faults that I see in myself in others and never think he’s fat, she’s skinny, etc. I think that in the end it is the person that you are on the inside that resonates out and makes you beautiful.

I am learning to accept and love my skinny, wrinkly body and I feel super blessed for all that it has been able to fight and recover from. The only way that I really long for my body to look now is healthy.

Dramatic and fast weightless….always sounded like a dream come true to me. I was very thin as a young adult but as I got married, had children and especially started high doses of steroids for asthma and COPD my weight had ballooned up to 240 at my heaviest, wearing a size 18 pants and 2X or 3X shirts.

Rapid weight loss is not healthy, nor is it pretty. By the time that I went in for my diaphragm reconstruction in June of 2016 I was down to around 170 pounds. I felt super thin already at that point. After the reconstruction and complications that caused me to lose the rest of my stomach, the weight loss just sped up even faster.

Protein drinks. Vitamins, minerals and injections to try to keep my nutritional status at an acceptable level. I have been hospitalized for TPN one time since my surgery. My body got into a state of almost constant dry heaves. My mouth was constantly filling with saliva and I was to the point of spitting in a bowl because I could not even tolerate swallowing my own spit. After about 5 days of this I ended up in the ER. Nothing that they gave me could stop the nausea or wrenching. At this point I was admitted and started back on TPN. After about a day the wrenching stopped. No idea to this day what caused the episode. I still have those same types of episodes but they never seem to last more than 24 hours at this point. They do leave me horribly weak.

In the world that we live in, it seems that the goal is to be super thin and it is equated with good health. When I do venture out of my house, I always try to look good. I fix my hair, I put on makeup and try to look like everyone else. I get tons of compliments now on how great I look, how skinny I am, how jealous (yes, jealous) people are of my size.

These people have good intentions and it does make me feel good to get a compliment of any kind. BUT it is also sad…it has been hell to look like this and it is still a challenging life everyday. You have no idea what you are wishing for. I was alway so worried about my size and how fat I was and hating my body. There are days that I dream of just being my old self as this new “normal” sucks! I am gaining acceptance of my new self.

I have been able to stabilize my weight around 125 for several months now! This is a huge success. Recently I gained 5-6 pounds and was keeping it on and was super happy thinking maybe I could gain a little weight. Well, it turns out that I had a bowel obstruction. This was 3 weeks ago. Now that the bowel obstruction has cleared I am back down to the 125 range.

So I guess this is my new size….crazy to buy clothes that look to me like they should fit a child. It still amazes me to fold my own laundry. It is shocking to see myself in a picture or too see myself in a mirror with all my loose skin.

Being this thin is painful! It hurts to sit in a bathtub, on bleachers, any hard surface. It hurts to lay in bed on my side because me knees are too bony. Shaving my legs is a nightmare!!! I have not successfully shaved my legs without cutting myself in the last year.

On the bright side I have all new clothes and shoes….yes, even my feet are smaller!!! So grateful for online shopping!!!