The Bigger Picture, Part I

I used to work in the fitness industry. This puts me smack dab in the middle of the one of the hottest crazes in this country next to Twitter and Facebook. What people won't do to lose 5, 10 15, lbs. It seems like the closer that they are to their goal, the more insane they get and the greater the lengths to which they will go to get there. Surgery here, diet pill there, 20 trainers, a colon cleaning, green tea, 2 or 3 gallons of water a day, cardio sessions twice a day, and more.

What?

I guess it's a little different for me.

And I have my loving family to thank for this. For their support through the years.

Yes, that was deliberately sardonic.

I was always a chubby kid. At the same time, I had a bunch of allergies when I was young. Add to that the fact that the average person would have thought that I had no immune system. If someone got sick in America, I would catch what they had. I had every upper respiratory problem that you could imagine. One year, I had double pnuemonia, that regressed after subsiding, for about 70 days straight. So, I definitely had my share of problems. These problems also affected the foods that I could tolerate. I was allergic to so many things. I remember having an all over body reaction to Vitamin C pills. Who has an allergic reaction to a Vitamin ? Obviously I did. Besides all the foods that I could not stomach because I just didn't like their taste, I had skin allergies to dairy, and other reactions to lot of other products, like bleached sugar, and more.

So keep this in mind as I explain where my bigger picture started.

One day, my dad took us over my cousin M's house. (The names in this story have been changed to protect the innocent (the innocent being me and the protection is against unnecessary drama).M and his family have a wonderful way of making one feel completely uncomfortable and unaccepted while making it seem that this is done under the guise of hospitality and genuine all-around concern packaged in a box of dirty diapers. Bizarre example? Yes. Undesirable situation? More than yes. He and his family are the type that actually would stop you at a funeral and tell you that they liked your suit. His daughters developed this trait even further, inherited from their mother and their father. This resulted in awkward situations like being at an event for family and friends, and having them scrutinize a younger relative's hair (someone who was 5), asking who cares for her hair and was she going to get a perm... Yes, this is the type of uncomfortable scrutiny that comes with my father's side of the family. Add to this the fact that M made more money than we did, and he never really had any problems flaunting that and making it obvious that he was flaunting it. It's the old mentality from slavery that once we of color have something, we want so to be accepted by the majority, and to give ourselves that validation that not having or not being respected takes away, that we overstate the fact that we have made it, or that we do have something. I cannot blame him in some aspects, because many fall prey to this. Including my father's brother. This is a man who knows that he and I live in the same city, and knows how much I have been struggling, and he would never even lift a single finger to make sure that I am ok. He will though lift his whole hand to pick up his wallet and drive the Range Rover to an expensive meal where he will tell people how much he cares about us. Tell me that one in my good ear, because I don't think that I heard you correctly.

One day, my dad took us over my cousin M's house. Michael and my uncle sequester me in the kitchen where all the kids were going to eat. I remember when I was young, I had this big issue understanding what salad was. That seems funny at first, like the big kid didn't even know what a salad was. What I mean was that in my house, a salad was literally lettuce and dressing, because I couldn't stomach tomatoes and some of the other vegetables that go in salads. So, in my head, salad was lettuce. I had never seen a salad otherwise, so when I saw an actual chef's salad, I was confused. This confusion led to a conversation at me, not with me, since I was 5, that came directly from M and my father's half brother. So, it was something to the effect of that I needed to be eating more salads because I was fat, and I didn't want to be fat when I grow up like others, indicating my parents. If I could ever have any words taken back that were said to me in this lifetime, the words that these two imbeciles said at me would be my choice. Whether they realized it or not, those words framed a life of pain, hurt, guilt, self-hate, disappointment, depression, suicidal thoughts, and ultimately, an eating disorder. The only thing that hurt anyway similarly was my mother's brother-in-law B, who told me that I made up my eating disorder, and that he never remembered my having a problem eating when I was at his house. He is also the person that told me that because of my lifestyle choices, it would be better if I didn't have repast with my family after my father's death. (Repast is a tradition after a funeral for the family of the deceased to convene and eat and comfort each other. People call it different things. We call it repast.) This is the first time in my life that I am actually committing to words what happened. I'm so at the point of tears right now, not because I am a bitch, but because I am so angry, understanding how much pain I endured because of people that don't matter, who I now do not consider as family, who have absolutely no effect on my life. I lost so much time and energy hating myself and the body that I was given instead of having some self-love and being able to sculpt myself earlier into the shape that I wanted, solely because it was my choice. They stole my choice to be healthy physically and mentally, and there is no way that they can ever redeem themselves.

So, at 5, I decided that food was a bad thing, because these gabons who I believed were smart and knew everything because I respected and loved them at the time. This began my 15 year love and hate relationship with food. Inside, I hated the fact that I enjoyed the process of eating. It did not help that I was subjected to my paternal grandmother and aunt growing up, who always somehow each week, brought us back to center about my weight, or my hair, or my clothes. It's funny how these degenerates all have become subject to health problems that most likely arose directly from their eating habits, and also the bile that fills their veins. Knock on wood, I have had the direct opposite effect, but it was really only after freeing myself from any of the constraints of their opinions.

Anyway, I started to like food, and hate food, and then hate that I liked food, and like that I hated food. I went through training myself not to eat in public, especially with my father's family. I dreaded when the waiter or waitress would come to our table. I could not imagine what was going to come out of their mouths about me and how fat I was and change my order or just make fun of me. Crazily enough, all throughout grade school, I think that maybe 7-8 people total made fun of me because of my weight. Not saying that those statements didn't hurt, but they hurt a lot less than family's saying it.

As I got older, I actually prided myself on my ability to go a whole day without eating. That was my secret weight loss plan. Of course, this brought on the closet eating thing. I really tried making myself throw up, but I couldn't get myself to fully do it because as a singer, I had learn that it's detrimental to your vocal cords to have traces of stomach acid on them. (Whether that is true or not, it stopped me from purging for a while.) I also learned how to make myself nauseous by thinking myself sick. I would actually concentrate on being nauseous so that I would not have to purge but I could still throw up. I also did that thing where you chew your food so that you get the taste of it, and then spit it out.

Add to that the fact that these issues with my body gave me a weird combination of confidence and disgust. I was always confident in my intelligence, sense of style, public speaking ability and intelligibility. However, none of this helps any when you are in a high school changing room and you are the only fat kid, and these guys are just getting used to thinking about girls' bodies, and here I am with an enlarged chest. (It was also discovered that I have more testosterone and estrogen in my body than I should, so add that onto the list.) I remember even being approached once by a guy who tried to feel my chest, thinking that I was a girl with a short haircut. (Of course, knowing what I do now about the world, this could have been just a random cover for in-the-closet behavior, but I honestly think that he thought that I was a girl because of how large my chest was.)

This is Part 1. Part  2 will follow, going into detail about from the beginning of my weight loss journey to now and what my plans are for the future.