Oh My God, I Think I’m Fat!

I woke up today and after a fitful sleep realized that I had gained over ten pounds in the last year. Now, let me be clear: it is not so much the number on the scale (which I don’t own anyway) that is the disturbing issue. It is the fact that when I am jarred awake by the scream of the alarm in the morning, and I finally slide my leg and touch my toe to the floor and sit up, I feel heavy. I feel my body, from the inside out, and it feels big. It doesn’t help also that when I stand in front of the closet everyday, the wait becomes longer and longer. What can I pull on that won’t squish my ass, cut into my belly when I sit down, or make me breathe in short tiny bursts all day? Do I own any mumus? Can I get away with sweatpants at the office? The questions and justifications become more and more ridiculous as I lean against the closet door, frowning.

But here is the true issue, the one that slaps me in the face with reality: I am not treating my body right and it is manifesting into bad health. In early December, on a Sunday morning, I woke up with a slight leg cramp in my right leg. By dinnertime, the pain was so bad I could barely put weight on it. By midnight, I was in agony and had to be taken to the emergency room. Almost twenty-four hours later in the ER after countless tests, the doctors finally concluded that I had an infection in my symbiotic fluid in my right hip joint. What? They didn’t know why; they didn’t know how. The one key explanation that one doctor offered, almost as a side note was that everyone gets toxicity in their system, but people dispose of it differently. Some have skin problems, some get high cholesterol, some have anxiety, etc. I obviously expel it through my hip joint. So, they rushed me into surgery, sliced open my hip and cleaned out the toxic gunk. Since then, I have done physical therapy, taken my antibiotics religiously and had the staples removed. I walked without a limp by the end of December and now, two months later, can run the stairs at the beach. But the toxicity issue still lingers and haunts me.

So when I woke up this morning and felt my fatness (to me, being 5’3” with a small frame, ten extra pounds feels fat) I decided it was time to make a change. On Sunday, February 14th, Valentine’s Day, I am starting a raw food diet. I have two days to binge and feast, and then I will begin my challenge. Thank goodness I still have some fried chicken and potatoes in the fridge…