Fat

I am very fat and yet cannot seem to do anything to stop being so fat. I am in this terrible cycle of feeling trapped and sad by my weight and the only thing that makes me forget is eating.

I just came back from a yearly family vacation, a trip to our summer home on a lake. The whole thing was affected by my weight. There were all the things I was unable to do:

• I couldn't hike because my knees hurt all of the time
• I couldn't kayak because I was afraid I wouldn't be able to get out of the boat
• I couldn't enjoy the big cocktail party I threw because my knees hurt so much from the standing and all I could think of was how much fatter I was than the year before, and how awful I look

There was all the time I spent strategizing around my fat:

• Paying for first class on the flight so I didn't have to squish into a normal seat.
• Panicking over all of the old, tiny chairs at all of the cabins - would I break one? Would I have trouble getting out of the low ones? I got very lucky and none of those things happened.
• Hiding my swollen ankles (my ankles swell when I am above a certain weight) - maxi skirts, elevation, wearing workout shoes when no workouts were happening - just to squish my ankles back into shape before I put sandals back on.
• Dodging pictures, being constantly jolted into facing my fatness whenever someone showed me a picture of myself.

And just feeling so sad and trapped the whole time.

Did I come home and jump on a healthy eating plan? No, I came home and ate pancakes. I told myself it would be the "last time, before I buckled down," but since I always tell myself this, I did not believe it.