On Slimming Down

It's been four months, and I've lost 36 pounds now. THIRTY SIX. :shakinghead: This is a bizarre phenomenon. Every time I think I've hit a stopping-point, and my body's done dropping weight solely as a side-effect of a drug I'm taking, it starts back up again. I've lost two pounds in the last two days. It's utterly unfathomable.

The strangest part about it is that I didn't really care about my weight. Sure--I was overweight. Yes, it had been sneaking on, not so slowly, for the last five or six years. But the thing is, I didn't care! It wasn't really bothering me. My weight had been pretty stable for the last 8 months before I started the Topamax, and I was OK with how I looked and felt. It just wasn't an issue.

I think, for me, being OK with my weight was revolutionary. I grew up thinking I was fat. I'd never had my mother's tiny bone structure. I was built solidly, like my dad, with short, thick bones and a propensity to build dense muscle. But I was never fat. I just perceived myself that way. As a result, I spent most of high school and a good portion of junior high on a diet, unhappily comparing myself to slight, slim girls.

When I finally came to terms with the fact that I would never look like that, and stopped trying to diet myself into oblivion and just be healthy, my outlook changed. I became happy with myself for who I was, and not what I looked like. I looked great, but it simply wasn't important anymore.

Of course, after I got married and began cooking and snacking and putting on weight, I wasn't thrilled, but I remembered what I'd learned--that my worth was in no way related to my weight. It's a lesson that's stuck with me. So now, as my weight continues to plummet and everyone congratulates me (and rightly so! I'm healthier!), it's strange for me to consider. I have no "weight-loss goals." I had no desire to lose weight. It's an odd thing to have something good come at you out of left field and blindside you, I suppose.