Buy Walking VideosQuestion of the Week: What is your first fat memory?
For some of us, we can’t go back into our memory far enough to remember the first time we realized we were fat. We just always had been told we were fat. For others, weight gain is a recent thing. They grew up thin with no weight problems and the weight just crept on over the years.
What is your first fat memory?
Did you notice your body and realize you were overweight or did someone else point it out to you?
What did you think?
How did it all make you feel?
I vividly remember the first day that I realized I was fat. I was about four years old watching television in the living room at my grandma’s house. My grandma and my mom were in the kitchen talking. I heard my name and started listening to what they were saying. My grandma started the conversation,
“I noticed that she has another roll on her stomach. We really need to do something about her.”
My mom came to my defense,
“I’m not going to bug her about losing weight. She’s only four years old.”
The one thing that was obvious is that both my mom and my grandma thought I was fat. That was the day that I decided I was fat. After looking at the pictures from my childhood, I have come to realize that I wasn’t fat. My grandma was obsessed with weight: both her own and the people around her.
What if that is true about you? What if that person who pointed at you and called you fat was just lying and trying to hurt your feelings? We are all beautiful. Take some time today and try to remember the first time anyone called you fat. Write down how you felt and try to research to see if it was true or not. The first step toward getting the body you want is being truthful with yourself. Knowing the evolution of your health is the only way you’re going to know the truth.
Previous: Limiting Your Diet Can Lead To Binges
Next: New Walking DVD: Moab Walk
January 29th, 2007 at 6:07 am
I was actually pretty skinny until I had my son at age 27. But the horrible thing is that my mother used to tell me I was fat as a teenager — even though I was 120 lbs at 5’8″.
Now I’m 213 lbs. At some level, I got deliberately fat during an abusive marriage. I remember eating and thinking, “I’m going to get fat. It will serve him right.” It was an act of self-hate as well as anger. It became a habit, a way of dealing with my feelings.
When I look at old pictures of myself in my 20s, I often cry, because I had such a great figure — and didn’t know it. But now I’ve been slowly losing weight over the past 6 months — a total of 16 lbs kept off, despite depression and lots of crisis. It’s time to reverse what was done to me and what I did to myself.
January 29th, 2007 at 6:41 pm
The school nurse came up to me and asked me why I gained weight so fast. I was thin at ten when I entered the school.
January 29th, 2007 at 6:45 pm
Iris I am so sorry about your marriage and your mother’s verbal abuse. I hope you learn to feel beautiful now. The weigh will be easier to deal with if you are happy with yourself.
January 29th, 2007 at 8:45 pm
I knew that I was gaining weight after high school, but I was WAY too skinny, so I figured, well, it doesn’t matter if I gain a little weight. And I kept telling myself that. Until one day, I was with my (now ex) husband & we ran into a friend of his & his girlfriend. The gf asked me when I was due. I told her I wasn’t pregnant. Then she asked “Oh, how old is the baby?” This hurt on so many levels. One that I was fat & this total stranger was rudely telling me that & also, because, at the time, I was trying to get pregnant & was heartbroken that I couldn’t concieve. Great discussion, Laura!
January 31st, 2007 at 12:21 pm
After I gave birth to my son at age 37 needed to buy a size 18 did not even Know that size existed. My soon is now 28 mths I’m still fat now wearing a size12 and seem to be stuck.
April 11th, 2008 at 10:21 pm
I guess the first time I really realized I was fat was when I was at the grocery store. I was at the frozen food section, and thise little girl, about 4 years old or so, pointed to me and said loudly, as little girls do, to her mom… ‘Mama! Look at the fat lady!!!!’ Her mother hushed her and silently slunk away from the area with her daughter.. But there I stood realizing that I was the ‘fat woman’ that you see in the grocery store.. The one that all the skinny young girls laugh at behind your back.. The one who NEVER gets a date, even tho you have a ‘pretty face’. I have lost a few pounds since that humiliating afternoon.. about 20 pounds I guess. Not enough really for anyone to notice. But I know its gone. Its not helped my self-esteem any tho.. I see myself as that hideous fat woman in the store.. someone to be mocked at and made fun of. For me, the pain will always be there. I used to be a beautiful woman in my early 20s. But since I gave birth to three beautiful daughters, my body looks huge. I can relate to the woman who stated someone asked her when her baby was due.. I get that question all the time and the pain is enormous. I just answer, ‘Im not pregnant, just fat.’ Usually shuts them up. I would kill to be a size 12 again.