More Backstory

I had a visit from an old neighbor the other night. She is 31 and looks 25. A petite brunette with lovely eyes and a gorgeous smile. We were talking about age, and she said she feels so old now, instead of saying she's 31, she says she's 20-11. Talking about how she felt in her 20s, her face just lit up. She said she felt she could do anything. And I was amazed.

You couldn't pay me enough money to go back and relive my 20s. Sure, there are many milestones and beautiful memories from that decade of my life - that's when I got married and had my three beautiful babies - but what lingers in my heart when I think back to my twenties is just a sense of feeling powerless, invisible, and stuck.

I gained 40 lbs in my first pregnancy. I was 23, a newlywed, living in a foreign country where I didn't have a single friend. Once in a blue moon, the phone would ring for me in our little one-bedroom apartment in Anaheim, CA. And it would be my mother-in-law. God bless her. If it hadn't been for her, I might have gone off the deep end.

Then I had my beautiful boy, and quit my nanny job to stay home and care for him. It was a magical time, just me and my sweet baby, but it just deepened my isolation. My husband would bake scrumptious chocolate-chip cookies, which I would just munch on all day. The big outing of the day was putting baby Joakim in the stroller and walking to the convenience store to buy Sugar Babies. Needless to say, the baby weight did NOT come off.

The following year, we decided to move our little family to Texas. And to try for another baby. My ever-laconic husband figured, since I was still carrying around the extra weight, we might as well go for it. Mattias was born a year later.

When Mattias was a baby, I came in contact with a group of Swedish girls who, like me, had come over to the U.S. as nannies, then stayed and married American men. As you can imagine, we bonded immediately, and so did our husbands. Us girls would get together with our babies and toddlers, and the guys would go out and do their thing.

I wasn't unaware of the stresses my young marriage was under. We were broke, tense, and frustrated, parents of two little boys, with no grandparents around to lean on for support. My husband had told me before we even got married, "Don't you ever get fat, because I hate fat women." Well, as a self-fulfilling prophecy, it worked like a charm...

My husband didn't find me particularly attractive with 20 - 30 extra pounds on my 5'2" frame. He figured, he'd asked me repeatedly to lose weight, so when I didn't, it must be an act of defiance on my part. Because if I truly loved him and wanted him to be happy, I would've just done it, right? He punished me by giving me the cold shoulder in a hundred different ways. And yet, our marriage hobbled along. We went to counseling, things got better, I had lost some weight, and we became the parents of an adorable baby girl, Linnea. Our family was now complete.

My wise friend Carina claims, when you're stressed, your body hangs onto extra weight. I'm sure that's true. I also know that food, and especially candy and sweets, is what I turn to for comfort when I'm depressed and, yes, stressed.

When I turned 30, I was the mother of a six-year-old, a four-year-old, and a one-year-old. I was still overweight and unfit. I never seemed to find any time to work out, or take care of myself in smaller ways. But my husband and I had just bought our first house, and I had set about painting and renovating it. Also, my work as a preschool teacher had allowed me the opportunity to use my creative talents painting murals in some of the classrooms. People were beginning to take notice, and pretty soon I was getting paid paint work on a regular basis.

I figured, in my 30s, things were bound to start looking up.

The Backstory

I was a chubby baby. My grandmother was from the generation that believed chubby equaled healthy, and skinny equaled sickly, as far as babies were concerned. Consequently, she fed me heavy whipped cream and other rich treats to "fatten me up" until it was practically coming out my ears.

It didn't help that, as a young child, all my favorite activities were of a sedentary nature: coloring, legos, other crafts... As I got older and made friends in the neighborhood, outdoor activities became more important, but my chubbiness nonetheless remained.
I think I was around eight or nine the first time I noticed there were some differences between me and the really popular girls my age. It wasn't about boys (yet) - more like an internal measure of comparison. Not as skinny as, my hair's not as long as, not as pretty as... whomever I chose to compare myself to.

I can't say I let it bother me too much. In the little short stories I'd write, my alter ego was always skinny, with long flowing hair, but in my real life, I was pretty content. Into my teens, I was active in scouting and soccer, had plenty of friends, and boys liked me. I loved candy and sweets, and my mom's cooking, but everything seemed to balance out, and by the time I was in 7th grade, I had pretty much arrived at the body shape I think is natural for me - small on top, but with some "junk in the trunk"...

I lived in that blessedly ignorant world of those who never worry about their weight until I was 19 and living with my boyfriend. Aided by Couple Cooking (those late-night, rich dinners to celebrate that we're in love, special and fabulous) and abetted by unconditional love, I started piling on the pounds. My loving boyfriend lovingly raised some concerns about my health and my future, which I chose to ignore. I was happy. I loved good food. My boyfriend loved me no matter how I looked. What could possibly be the matter?

Looking back, these 20+ years later, I see exactly what was the matter. There is always a "mind" reason when my body changes. That is to say, when I start gaining weight, there is always an emotional issue I'm trying to ignore, suppress with food, numb out from by overeating, distract myself from with sweets and treats.

In this case, it turned out to be the fact that, loving and wonderful as he was, my boyfriend was not right for me, and I was not ready for a serious relationship (at 19 - duh...). I ended up hurting him terribly, and escaped the fallout by moving clear across the world, to Orange County, CA. And to a whole new world of body image issues.

The Before

I knew the moment this picture was taken, it was going to be my Before Picture. This is me at my heaviest, 157 lbs, on a beach in Cancun, almost exactly two years ago.
This was not the first time I weighed 157 lbs. Nor was it the last. But it was the only time I walked confidently on the beach, in a bikini, weighing 157 lbs.
That in itself was a victory. I have to tell you, I almost didn't go on this trip. And why? Only because I felt fat.
I signed up to go on this "Moms Gone Wild" trip months in advance. I had enough time to get in shape. I just didn't. Instead, I made excuses, and poor food choices, and before I knew it, the trip was right around the corner, and I weighed 157 lbs.
Ever been in a situation like that? A class reunion, a company Christmas party, a trip to your home town for the first time in forever? And you feel fat, and you want to opt out?
Well I sure have. And I have opted out before. I have missed out on so much life, putting myself on the sidelines because of my weight issues. This time, though, I made a different choice. I made the choice to go, just as I was at that moment. I made the choice to participate in life, and to take advantage of the opportunities that came my way.
I made the choice to walk confidently along that beach, in a bikini, weighing 157 lbs. It was an empowering experience. Then I came home and joined Weight Watchers.