When your success is someone else's failure...
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Kabakdc
Posts: 4 Member
I had RNY gastric bypass 13 months ago. I've lost more than 100 pounds, I'm three pounds from being 'overweight' instead of 'obese' for the first time in more than 14 years. I can easily run a 5K, swim a mile, or complete an intense cardio class. I lift weights and foam roll. I've gone from a size 24 to a size 14. I sleep better. My skin is clearer. I'm infinitely stronger and happier. My surgeon and nutritionist both agree I should only plan to lose about 20 more pounds, something that seems completely attainable, especially since they say it should take about a year. I've been feeling pretty great about all this.
But then, today, I was reading a women's fitness magazine and was reading a feature about another woman's journey to fitness and realized that her starting (read 'unhealthy') weight was exactly where I'm at now - same age, height, and weight. wow. Her story says she then lost 60 (not 20 pounds) and is just now reaching a healthy weight.
I'm not sure why, but this has really upset me today. I know I'm not thin, and that in 20 pounds I won't be thin either, and nothing about someone else's story diminishes my own, but something about seeing that in black and white was just seriously deflating. Its like someone moved the goal post. Intellectually, I know that all my successes remain what they are but emotionally it really hurts to think that this place I've worked SO hard to be was the place where someone else woke up and felt like they had hit rock bottom.
I will not let this derail me. If I've learned anything on this journey, its that bottling up emotions and suffocating or feeding them with food is the real danger. So i'm trying to feel what I'm feeling today: maybe tired, deflated, and sad if I have to put labels on it, and then let it go so I can just get on with my journey and being peaceful with my own goal weight, wherever I decide that will be.
Thanks for being such an awesome, supportive community that I feel like I can safely share this here.
Good luck to each of you on in your own success story!
But then, today, I was reading a women's fitness magazine and was reading a feature about another woman's journey to fitness and realized that her starting (read 'unhealthy') weight was exactly where I'm at now - same age, height, and weight. wow. Her story says she then lost 60 (not 20 pounds) and is just now reaching a healthy weight.
I'm not sure why, but this has really upset me today. I know I'm not thin, and that in 20 pounds I won't be thin either, and nothing about someone else's story diminishes my own, but something about seeing that in black and white was just seriously deflating. Its like someone moved the goal post. Intellectually, I know that all my successes remain what they are but emotionally it really hurts to think that this place I've worked SO hard to be was the place where someone else woke up and felt like they had hit rock bottom.
I will not let this derail me. If I've learned anything on this journey, its that bottling up emotions and suffocating or feeding them with food is the real danger. So i'm trying to feel what I'm feeling today: maybe tired, deflated, and sad if I have to put labels on it, and then let it go so I can just get on with my journey and being peaceful with my own goal weight, wherever I decide that will be.
Thanks for being such an awesome, supportive community that I feel like I can safely share this here.
Good luck to each of you on in your own success story!
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