Now you see me.............

In recent days I have started my last ever diet.  This one is the final, life long, health giving, I made-it diet.  The other diets were simply pale practice runs.  I am determined, I have support, I know my time is running out to escape diabetes and this is IT.  

So, it has also made me look at what I am, and at who I am.  I know I am fat, am big, take up lots of space, require a sticker that states Heavy Load, but is this really me?  I have never thought so.  I have seen my size as a temporary state, a pause in between being healthy and healthy again.  It occurred to me that this temporary phase has lasted more than 15 years and I really ought to get to grips with it.  I never look in mirrors as I hate what I see.  I don’t like photos as that lump in the foreground surely isn’t me.  All this will change, but then who will I be?  I have identified myself for so long as big, and it has been an excuse for so long, what will I be left with?  The world in general shuts out the big person, makes it hard for us, but I have allowed this to happen.  I can’t do this, can’t do that, can’t go here, be expected to………. because I am big.  I have stayed meekly in my fat corner and not complained.  But here I come world; I am going to rejoin you. 

And the person I will be is the person I have always been, just without my wall, my defence, my excuse, by battlement.  

If I ruled I would make it a rule that every weight loss club leader should once have been very overweight.  I don’t care that they lost 2 stone ten years ago and now they can dress like Barbie and sip juice and eat berries at every wedding and party known to mankind.  I want a leader at the front, telling me how hard it is, telling me she gets it and she’s with me every giant step of the way.  I don’t want to know that 5 years ago my class leader stopped eating cheese and made friends with super-low-cal spread; I want to hear she craves cheese but finds ways to deal with it.  Come on Weight Watchers, get real.  Big people who get it are a better support than you can find anywhere in the world.  Invest in us.

I also want Fat Gym, where big people play rounders, and tennis, and netball, and the bikes are bigger with bigger saddles, and the trampolines take over 18stones in weight.  Then and only then will people who are obese truly join in and be equal. 

Oh, and the main difference from this Last Diet to all previous is I am going to enjoy the journey.  Even if I collapse in a sobbing exhausted heap in doing so!