The Experiment – A 365 Day Search For Happiness

On the ketogenic diet there is something that we are encouraged to do and that is not to just weigh ourselves but to measure ourselves and keep a record of that too. You can lose inches even when you are not losing pounds, it’s “a thing,” and for someone who lost 25 pounds in 2 months and then didn’t lose a pound for the next 3 months, even though I did NOT eat one bite of non-keto food — I nearly lost my mind — to see that I was indeed losing inches kept me from jumping off a bridge. Your body does amazing healing work on keto in all manner of ways and sometimes it prioritizes internal healing over losing weight. It truly is a fascinating process. Finally I started losing weight again, slowly. Today I weighed 285 pounds, that’s 48 pounds down. In 2 pounds I will hit the 50 pound mark. I will be over the moon.

When I started for some odd reason the first few times I only recorded my neck, my waist, and my hips. When I started my neck was 20 inches, my waist was 54 inches, and my hips were 70″. Today my neck is 15 inches, my waist is 46 inches, and my hips are 61″. I record more areas now but that will give you an idea. And according to the size charts on the website where I have purchased my plus size clothes for some time I am down nearly 2 dress sizes. Today I looked at dresses in the Clearance section of the site. As you could see from the pictures the other day the long loose things I am used to wearing are getting so baggy as not to be really wearable, but the thing is I still have a lot of weight to lose, and I will be going down through several sizes, many sizes, and I don’t have the money to keep buying clothes. But at about 50 pounds down it would be nice to maybe buy a couple of things for when I go out which I rarely do. It’s fine to wear my caftany things around the house. I’m trying to figure out now how I want to handle this. I look forward to the day when, like many of my friends do, I can go to thrift shops. Gosh people get such cute things there, practically, and sometimes, brand new for very little money. But when you wear pretty big sizes it is just about impossible to find things that fit. But that day will come my friends, that day will come.

And then there’s something else. When you have been really heavy for a very long time — and at one point I weighed nearly 400 pounds — “fashion” is not something even on your radar. You wear caftans and loose things thinking you are hiding somehow which of course you’re not, but that’s all that fits. Now, while I know this isn’t true for all women — I have seen some very large women who are very stylish, well made up, and really own their size — most of us really suffer and struggle and going out into the world is a very hard thing to do. I have come to understand that a big part of my agoraphobia has been fear of participating in the world as a very large woman. I am no small woman now, but I am smaller, and I know for certain I am going to go the distance this time if it takes me 2 or 3 years to do it, and it’s amazing what losing just 50 pounds has done for me. I still have another 100+ pounds to go, but I am beginning to feel like maybe I’m not so horribly unattractive as I have felt for so long.

What, then, is happening for me, at 64, 50 pounds down, and knowing, with certainty, 9 months into the ketogenic diet and knowing that I am keto for life, that I finally have something I can and will stick to and that the weight will indeed come off, what has this done for me? It has, or it is beginning to, make me care about living again. I am not by nature, agoraphobia aside, a big “goer outter” but I did used to go out more, I used to teach and I loved it, there were things I really did like to do. What if, in my 60’s, I become a completely different person as I will, in more ways than I can now imagine, when all the weight is off? I have been hiding for a very long time. What will I do when I don’t have to hide anymore? Who will I become?

I absolutely can’t imagine.

I am starting to ask myself questions. Where are the places I would like to go but don’t because of my weight? Well, the first thing that comes to mind is that I always used to love to go swimming. I live in a town with one of the most beautiful beaches in the world, I have lived here for 26 years, and I have never put on a swimming suit and gone to the beach! I have a friend with a pool who has invited me to come swim. I’d have rather been caught dead! What if I were confident enough to put on a suit and get into the water? Gracious me, I can’t imagine. And all those years ago, when we moved here, and I was home raising my children, I was small, for me, compared to what I weigh now. I weighed well under 200 pounds. But my confidence was already gone. What must it be like to have confidence, pride, in your appearance?

Of course for me the crowning blow came in 1995 when I got Bell’s Palsy. I had been out actively teaching a lot at the time. I taught a lot in a number of places, I loved it. But I was so disfigured after the Bell’s, it literally is horrifying to look in the mirror and see half of your face drawn down in a horrendous way, like the Phantom of the Opera. And most people recover completely from Bells within 3 months. I never did. I had acupuncture 3x a week for a year, all kinds of other treatments and therapies, but I ended up paralyzed for life. And for me, who had lost confidence in herself with the ongoing weight issues (I weighed 133 pounds when my first child was a year old. It was a huge difference.) the last vestige of confidence I had in myself was that everyone always told me I had a beautiful smile. Came the Bells and the smile was gone forever. There was nothing left. Despite what anyone else says in my heart there was nothing left. And it’s not just looks. I tried, shyly, to teach again a year after the Bell’s. People were very accepting but it was more than the way I looked. I am paralyzed on one whole side of my face and I talk different, it’s harder, I sound funny to myself. Physically it was a struggle. After that I retreated from the world. And I gained more and more weight, I got fatter and fatter, and I simply disappeared from the world at large.

I am at the beginning of a major change. As I’ve said I don’t know how long it will take but I know that even with these gradual changes more and more will happen over time until one day, when I look in the mirror, I will see a slender woman. She will be in her 60’s now, and she will still be lopsided from the Bell’s Palsy, but I even wonder how that will change, not that it will go away, but it might look a little better on a thinner face. There’s no telling who I will be. I am, I feel a little shy to say, really excited to think about it.

I am on my way, pounds and inches and more. A new day is dawning. I never thought I’d see the day. What a wondrous thing this is.