Am I My Body?: Part Three

I was definitely gaining weight back. As I moved through several job changes, I needed more variety and larger sizes in my business wardrobe. I remember a shopping trip to Nordstrom’s where the lady told me it would be a challenge to find suits in my size. We managed to find three (so much for that challenge) but I certainly didn’t like the way I looked in them.

I look back on those years now and don’t really remember much about how I saw myself. I didn’t like the way I looked but didn’t know what to do. I was still working out 4-5 times a week. After my old gym closed, and the weight group drifted apart, I struggled to maintain the weight training. It was hard to jump on the El and head downtown at the end of my working days when everyone else seemed to be going in the other direction! I found a little “women’s gym” near the townhouse where we lived in the late 80’s but wasn’t happy there. Didn’t know anyone, not enough equipment, and everyone seemed to be into martial arts. I got some weights to work with at home but couldn’t seem to work consistently for an hour on my own twice a week.

I was trying to do my aerobics at home with all my old cassette tapes. I found a trainer who worked with me in the exercise room of her building. It went pretty well, but I kept gaining weight. Ernie was drinking way too much, and so was I. I didn’t like to cook, and he didn’t have the time. We probably ordered a lot of pizzas.

It seemed that no matter how much I worked out, I gained 3-4 pounds a year. Doesn’t sound like much but it added up. I was ashamed of the way I looked. And I just kept getting bigger. I would occasionally drop between 10 and 12 pounds… then put it back on again. I mostly would lose weight when I was sick. I had several really bad bouts with flu or something between 2010-2012 and would lose weight each time. Then would gain it all back when I felt better.

People talk about emotional eating. And about how they gained weight when depressed. It was the opposite for me. When I would go through one of what I referred to as my “dark periods” I would lose a little weight. When I’m truly depressed, I don’t want to do anything at all. Including eat! The emotions I can remember that seemed like they triggered eating had more to do with anger. As in, “My day sucks, so l deserve a candy bar.” Or, “I’ve given up everything else. I deserve a treat.”

What had I given up? Well, smoking, for one. I never smoked very much – about 8-10 cigarettes at day at the most. But I was worried about my singing voice, and more and more I was beginning to feel like a social pariah when I smoked. My doctor told me I nicotine replacement wouldn’t help because I was such a light smoker. During one bad bout of flu, I decided that since I had already not smoked for two weeks, I wouldn’t start again. And I didn’t. I had a few bad mornings or evenings when I craved a cigarette, but for the most part it was pretty easy. I did crave candy bars for a few weeks, and I started biting my nails again (a bad habit that still haunts me) but by the time three months had passed I never even thought about smoking. After six months I couldn’t believe I’d ever smoked.

And alcohol? That left my life too. As the years passed, I found myself drinking less and less. I think all those years in therapy helped me work through a lot of the pain I was trying to drink away. I was never in a program., so didn’t like to talk much about it, for fear that people would tell me I was kidding myself about being past the need to drink a lot. Ernie still drank way too much, but I was leaving it behind.

I kept thinking that all this right living would somehow reflect in my body, but that didn’t happen. No matter what vices I did or didn’t indulge, I just kept gaining 3-4 pounds a year. It added up! By 2019 I weighed in at 246.

I never accepted that the big girl looking back at me in the mirror was me. In my mind I still looked the way I did in my 20’s, and was always surprised when I saw myself in the mirror and in photographs I power walked for cardio, unless the weather forced me inside on my treadmill. I hated the treadmill. I tried to use it watching TV, or reading, and it was always miserable. I switched to a stationery bike sometime in the 90’s, but I could never find a comfortable way to sit on that thing. I could never find a good reading rack for magazines or books. TV meant endless commercials. I did weight work with several different trainers on equipment in my basement, until I gave up and joined a gym sometime in the late 90’s. I changed gyms at least three times, as they would close, or I would get different trainers. I probably went through eight different trainers. But I continued to do cardio on my own, summer, fall, spring, winter. I switched to mall walking sometime around 2012. It was a very tiny mall, and I had to do 10 laps to get my three miles in. And it was a 40 minute drive, even on a good traffic day.

I stayed consistent, on my own time and my own schedule. Cardio three times a week, weight work twice. Five days a week, for almost 40 years now. Not too many women my age can say that.

But I still gained weight.

For more of Jean's writing, check out her piece "Forgiving My Body" as featured on Braver Collective's Survivor Stories. Braver Collective is as organization dedicated to helping survivors of sexual abuse and trauma find their unique pathways to healing by creating and sharing accessible, reliable, trauma-responsive and shame-free online spaces dedicated to survivor voices. Jean is a proud Friend, Collaborator, and Donor to Braver Collective.