(Photo courtesy of Andrea Piacquadio)

Last weekend, my daughter-in-law took our 5-year-old granddaughter to a farm that has been souped up with, a train, a Ferris wheel, games, lots of kid-friendly activities, and of course, farm animals to see, pet and ride.

She texted me that it was exactly one year to the day since we had gone with them and the grandkids to visit this farm. And then she texted me this photo, taken a year ago, of my husband, myself and our two grandchildren in front of the farm’s fall-themed photo area:

I looked at myself in this photo and thought “ho-lee shit!!!” I could not believe how overweight I looked in that photo! I was stunned. Was I really that big? Yes, I was. There are no words.....

I never like being in photos when I feel overweight. I must have grinned and bore this one for the sake of my grandchildren.

I must also confess that I probably have this photo on my phone somewhere, so it is NOT the first time I am looking at it. I would have asked her to text it to me back then, as it was picture of us and the grandkids. However, I don’t remember seeing this photo and thinking I was THAT overweight.

I did post the one photo of myself in first blog post, the photo that was a contributing factor to my incentive to lose weight, but that photo didn’t look as horrific as this one.

My husband’s comment was: “Loose clothing really doesn’t hide it….” As much as that was an ‘ouch’ type of comment from a logical, indelicate engineer, it is indeed the truth, and sometimes the truth does hurt, even when we need to hear it and refuse to see it.

The photo below was taken the other day, roughly a year and a few days after the photo above (we were heading out for a bicycle ride and I wanted a comparison photo to the other one):

The difference between the two photos is around 71 pounds, maybe more. What a difference a year makes!

I needed to show you this because I truly didn’t understand how obese I’d become. Even though the visual evidence is really undisputable, I somehow managed to ignore how overweight I had become. I got used to seeing myself like that, and I had accepted that this was just ‘me.’ 

Have you ever gone to an eye care professional, where they test your vision, correct it with their machine and suddenly you can see clearly, and you had no idea that your vision had been as bad as it was? I think this is the same thing. It wasn’t until I ‘corrected’ my body size somewhat, and had gotten used to a smaller me, that I truly saw how obese I had been a year ago.

I'm embarrassed to admit that I have enough photographic evidence of my obesity, too. Much of it is on my phone. I just didn’t truly see it. Let’s change that to I truly didn’t WANT to see it.

My husband and I were going through some bins stored in the garage the other day. In a box of technology stuff (old programs on CDs, computer parts, etc.), I found two photo CDs that I had probably received with some physical photo prints. They were eight years old and I had no idea what was on them. Luckily, my laptop is old enough to have a disk player on it. 

The photos on both CDs were of a vacation to St. Crois that we took with our neighbors back in 2005. This was a special trip as all the kids were in high school and we knew once they headed off to college that we probably would never be able to get all our children together for a us to vacation together. There was exactly ONE photo of me and my husband that someone had taken with my camera. Again, I was surprised at how obese I looked. This photo wasn't much different from the one above. And that was 18 years ago. 

It may seem like I have become obsessed with how I looked/look. At the moment, I am, but not in the shallow way you may be thinking. 

As I look at those earlier photos of me, I wonder how I convinced myself that I didn't have a problem that needed to be addressed? Did I just not see? Did people do the polite thing and tell me I looked "fine", "good" and "okay" (because nice people do that) so I just grabbed onto those moments, convinced myself it was fine, and ignored the visual truth?  Or was I just scared to face the truth that I had a health problem that needed to be addressed?

All these thoughts, based solely on a few photos, made me consider the mind games we tell ourselves to make us think our weight and health issues are not as bad as they are.

I did try to hide it from myself. When I was heavier, I would wear very loose clothing to obscure how overweight I was. It made me feel better, but as pictures (and my husband) revealed, I wasn’t ‘hiding’ anything. I was creating an illusion for myself to not see how overweight I actually was. 

How did this continue for many, many years? I can tell you I had a fabulous inner monologue as I was reaching for my nth cookie, or as I scarfed handfuls of high calorie trail mix. I made sure I ate ‘healthy’ snacks but five servings of a healthy snack really isn’t healthy, is it?

I probably told myself that eating those few sugary treats really wouldn’t make me any more overweight because I’m just having a few. I’m sure I stood at the cupboard and negotiated myself into many poor choices over the course of my weight gain.

Add to all that, the guilt I was raised with about throwing food away. That is sinful and bad, so clean you plate!

I have a bag full of tricks and inner voices that kept me on the path I was on to stay obese. And those voices were convincing, until I saw a grain of truth in one photo earlier this year, and my desire to be healthier became a louder voice in my head.

The minute we acknowledge a problem that we have control over solving, we are put into the position of having to do something about it. If we never acknowledge it, the problem doesn’t exist, and we don’t have to do anything. It’s a handy little game we play that keeps us in unhealthy places.  I've been playing that game for years. I know it well.

If you are not currently on a diet but know that you need to lose some weight, what are you telling yourself with respect to food, drinks, clothing and exercise? Are your arguments designed to be sure that you don’t have to change your behaviors?

Mine were….

I think my favorite ‘excuse’ to not seriously lose weight, one that I proclaimed loudly at times, was one I heard from another person just the other day. “My body won’t allow me to lose that much weight….” That is definitely a voice that gave me permission to keep on as I had been, no matter how unhealthy it was.

Until I was ready to question the truth of that premise, I was going to remain obese.

It’s interesting how one photo can illuminate everything that we need to see about ourselves. Authentic, untouched photos don’t lie.  They reveal the truth, if only we'd believe what they tell us.

If you are interested in learning more about my version of a calorie deficit diet, you can check out this post:

This is How We Do It! (publish0x.com)