MY STORY

MY STORY

Most of us have a story to tell about our weight, our struggles and our hopes.  

Between the second and third grade my abdomen grew exponentially to my body. I can remember sitting at my desk with my belly lying on my thighs.  I knew something wasn’t right. 

Third grade was the first time I was put on a diet. It became an ongoing thing as long as I lived at home.  I was called fatty, fatso, etc. Yeah, those words hurt but no more so than hearing people say, “You have such a pretty face, but…..” Oh I knew what was came after that but….BUT YOU’RE FAT!

School was not a happy place. Home was not a happy place. I tried my best to blend into the walls and just not be noticed! Because when you are fat and you get into an argument or confrontation as a kid, you know the ultimate blow will be, “WELL YOU’RE FAT!”   Knock out!  There is nothing to say after that! 

I was a sad girl who tried to get people to love me by giving gifts and making gifts.  I remember one Christmas I had been up until early morning finishing all the beautiful gifts I had made.  Ponchos, shawls, foot stools, trinket boxes, clothes, etc.  I went to bed after opening gifts and didn’t wake up until the meal was already being served.  As I walked into the dining room, I heard my brother say loudly, HURRY AND EAT, HERE COMES CARYN!  I don’t think I even ate that day, but I never forgot the words and they still sting 45 years later.

I began a journey to find that thin person that was locked away somewhere inside my body.  The things I have done to my body in the quest to overcome being fat.  Starvation (fasting 6 days a week and eating one day). Diet pills, every kind that was on the market.  Fad diets.  Weight Watchers.  Nutrisystem.  Counting calories.  Hynosis.  Experimental drugs that nearly killed me.  Even having my stomach stapled.  None of it worked long term.  Back in 1999 and 2000, I decided to eat clean and exercise. I lost about 100 pounds but I was exercising 6+ hours a day.  I wasn’t working then unless you count exercising! Lol

When I hit 60 I decided, I’M DONE!  No more trying to lose weight. No more depriving myself.  No more diets.  No more anything!  I’d just take my chances.

And then Skinny Fiber came along. I thought.  Ok, I’ll try it and if it doesn’t work, I’ll return it and get my money back.  Even though I’m a diabetic and have an almost non-existent thyroid, I have lost about 60 pounds in the past 18 months.  I’m thrilled to be off my blood pressure medicine,  arthritis medicine, and acid reflux medicine.  My thyroid dose has been decreased.  My fibromyalgia is about gone.  I’m on my way to losing more weight and getting to the size I want to be.  Even my dr. is amazed with my progress!

And I move my body!   Walking or jogging.  Dancing like a fool.   I’m moving my body like nobody is watching.  And if they are, in my mind they are all yelling, “YOU GO, GIRL!”

So what is your story with your weight? What struggles have you faced in the battle to lose weight? It doesn’t matter whether it is 10 pounds or 100 pounds, our struggles are the same. 

And know this:   there is hope.   No matter how old or young you are.  No matter how fat you are.  No matter how little you are now moving.   There is hope.  I'm proof of it.

Help someone while you help yourself and share your own story.  Or just put it into words for yourself.  You will be glad you did.  I am.

copyrighted 2015

caryn cannatella

Skinny Fiber Sales:  www.caryncann2.com

Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/Caryncann

Twitter:  https://twitter.com/Caryncann

Fan Page:  https://www.facebook.com/mylighterside

Weight Loss Support Group:  https://www.facebook.com/groups/CarynsChamps

HEY FATSO!

HEY FATSO!

I bet just reading the title stung a few of you.  I know it did me!  The sting of that word stills rips my heart.

I was the fat kid in school.  Now I wouldn’t say I was grossly overweight.  I was under 180 until after I graduated from high school.  But I was bigger than the other girls.  I wasn’t tiny and cute.  And I wasn’t happy.

I was called fatso, fatty, tubby, pig, you name it; I was called it.  Those words just shred the confidence and self-esteem of a child.   They do the same to adults but children have these little hearts and minds that are still forming.  It’s difficult for them to process it as anything but hurt and hate.

My first diet was at 8.  I’m sure I was on at least one diet a year, and sometimes 2, for the next 10 years.  My mother kept a book in the top drawer of her chest of drawers.  When I got married at 24 she still had it.  What was in that book?  My weight and measurements she took on Saturday.  If the numbers went down, I was worthy.  If they stayed the same or, heaven forbid, they went up, well, there wasn’t much value in me.   It seemed to me that the only thing that mattered about me was my weight.  Things like sewing, crocheting, playing the flute, playing the piano, writing poetry, refurbishing furniture, and making gifts for others didn’t seem to bring any value to my life.  I was just a number on the scale.  A big fat number.  Oh, and I hated that book. 

I can remember many times seeing myself as a big fat egg.  Always in my mind there was this thin person who wanted to break that shell and scream, “This is who I really am!”  But I couldn’t.  I was fat.  And all fat people know that if you get into an argument with someone, you will leave the confrontation.  Why?  Because when the other person says, “Oh yeah?  Well, you’re fat!”, the argument is over.  There is no come back to that. 

I wish I could say that only mean boys at school called me names.  Oh they did, right through high school.  I acted like I didn’t care.  But girls called me names too.  And of course I got called names at home.  It was not a happy existent for the little girl I was in the picture above at 5.

Overweight children have a very sad, lonely, alone life.  Oh, they may present to others that it doesn’t matter and they are happy go lucky and funny.  But it does matter.  It is just a terrible way for a little kid to have to grow up.  I never believed anyone loved me and I never believed anyone would.  Even after I married, it was 10 years before I truly  believed my husband loved me and wouldn’t leave.

For an overweight child, words said, and even words unsaid can cut to the core.  If I heard my mother say it once, I heard her say it a hundred times, “You have such a pretty face but”, and then she would shake her head.  Oh, I knew what came after but, “BUT YOU’RE FAT!”  It was like fat was all there was to me.  I hated it and I hated myself.  And I hated the people who made me feel so worthless.

I wish I could say that when I became an adult it was different.  It wasn’t for many years.  I would have people come up to me in a store and say things like, “You don’t need to be eating that” or “We don’t have anything in our store to fit someone like you.”   I tried to remember when I stopped being verbally abused by strangers.  I think it was when I became a manager at my job.  I gained some confidence and since then I don’t think anyone has ever said anything to me like that again.  If they had, I would probably have fileted them like a fish and left them twitching on the ground.  Yes, they had taught me well; you can use words to hurt deeply.

I trudged through my adult life gaining and losing; gaining and losing.  That’s what I had done since I was 8.  I was allowed too few calories, losing weight quickly.  When I would go back to eating normally, I would gain the weight back and more.  I was losing muscle and gaining fat.  I became fatter and fatter with each successive diet. 

Finally, I just gave up.  I knew I would die fat and didn’t really care when.  I remember in the spring of 2013 I declared to anyone who listened, “I’m never dieting again or even trying to lose weight.  I’m going to eat whatever I want, when I want and as much as I want.”  And I did.  By now, the only thing I saw in a mirror was my eyes.  I knew they were pretty and nothing could make them ugly.  Well, except the dead look that stared back at me.

But that all changed when I started using Skinny Fiber.  I took responsibility for what I put in my mouth.  I made my own choices and learned to live with them.    I started looking at my body in the mirror wearing nothing.  It was so hard.  Even now I have problems with two areas of my body.  However, I have learned to appreciate and love my body, even as fat as it was and is, for taking good care of me all these years.  Sometimes it was the only protection I had.  I began to try new things, some I had feared trying.  I started pushing energy outward instead of just inward.

I have always been a loving and caring person but over the last 20 years, it had waned.  I found that again inside me.  Giving is something that gives me such joy.  Even if it is just sending a card to someone in the mail, it makes my heart warm.  It made me feel whole.  I began to feel complete.  I began to be that loving and caring person again.  I was changing from the inside out and the outside in. 

How I wish my little younger self had been able to find that.  Her world would have been a completely different place.  But I will tell you:  I live with no regrets.  I don’t think I would have become the person I am today if I had not gone through all the years between 8 and 61.  I was like the Israelites roaming the wilderness for 40 years.  The Promised Land was so close to them but they just couldn’t see it.  That was me.  I see it now.  I’m heading to my Promise Land and I’m going to try to take as many people who have struggled with their weight with me as I can.

And to my little 8 year old self, I say this:  “You were beautiful inside and out.  You were so talented and creative.  Even though you will endure much in your life, you will make it to that Promised Land.  And you will be in my arms when we get there.  Thank you for keeping me safe.”

copyrighted 2014

caryn cannatella

Skinny Fiber Sales:  www.caryncann.com