Christmas Night! Moment of Truth!

On Christmas night in 2024, I lay in the bathtub of my adult son’s newly renovated bathroom, reflecting on the busy, hectic, fun and indulgent day’s events.

My socialist Sister In Law had suggested a ‘Secret Santa Opportunity Shop’ theme for gifts this year for the purpose of being environmentally and financially friendly. Something that definitely would have been frowned upon by my side of the family.

But, being the kind of person who doesn’t judge, I happily participated in this as the best part was only needing to organize one present for the person whose name I drew out of the hat.

After my Secret Santa gave me a mini waffle maker, my son’s present (who turned out to be from my Father-In-Law ‘Grandpa’) was a set of bathroom scales. The meaning was not lost on any of us as my son’s comfort eating and weight gain had been a slight bone of contention for a while now. While Grandpa is a lovely natured man, loved by all, I couldn’t help but feel this wasn’t very subtle of him.

As I continued to soak away, a thought pushed its way to the front of my usually overcrowded mind where I was no longer able to ignore it. It was accompanied by what I like to call ‘a surge of bravery’. A now or never feeling I get when I finally decide to face up to something that has been gnawing away at me for some time.

So I pulled the plug and toweled myself off. As I stepped onto the strangely designed and unfamiliar set of second-hand scales (where on earth did my Father-In-law find these?!), I tried to prepare myself for what I knew was going to be a confronting result with all sorts of self-consoling preempting thoughts:

It’s Christmas, so even the skinniest people are going to weigh more than usual/No one can possibly diet during Christmas/All the stress weight gained was to be expected during my husband’s terminal illness battle and decline.

All self-comforting preemptive thoughts flew out of my head as I took in the final result with horror.

90.7 Kilograms!!!

I thought it would be bad but OMG!!!

No wonder it was getting harder to move around and my nighttime snoring was rivaling King Kong’s (or Zombies, according to my son).

As I am no stranger to weight loss, I at least had experience to draw on. In 2018 (when my husband was still alive and healthy), I successfully lost 15 Kilograms over six months through diet and exercise. So tonight’s result just felt even more of an Epic Failure!! As my ideal healthy weight is around 55 plus kilograms at 163 cm tall, I had more than double the amount to lose this time round (yikes!!).

I was long past tiring of my own overwhelming feelings of hopelessness and inadequacy and knew things had to change. But could I really do this?!

Only time would mercifully (or mercilessly) tell!

So far, I have completely surprised myself by slow success in the following months (and am pinching myself on a regular basis).

I wish to whole heartedly thank you for taking the time to read my whiny weight gain confessions and promise to post more in the near future.

My aim with these posts is to help others who know the same pain. We know we are not alone.

Take care and stay tuned

Love

FatGirlLim77 (obviously not my real name, lol)

xoxo