Accept it and Move On!

I am envious of naturally thin people. I like to say that I hate them, but I don't. I am just extremely jealous and wish that I was lucky enough to be one of them. I try to tell myself all of that cliche fat girl crap that is suppose to make myself feel better, but it doesn't work.

You know the shit I am talking about:

If I hadn't had to lose weight I probably wouldn't have such a clean diet. I am so glad that I have to eat fruits and vegetables, my body feels better this way. Being fat gave me a personality. Blah, blah, blah, etc.

I mean, when I am 60, and healthy with relatively low cholesterol and the only thing on my body that will be failing is my liver, I will be thankful that I live a healthy lifestyle. But right now, in the moment, I wish I were naturally thin. I wish I could drink like a fish, eat whole bags of Doritos, and never gain a pound. Unfortunately I am a natural fatty.

I have spent a lifetime being angry with my body. A lifetime of resenting, loathing, and yearning. Instead of trying to change myself, I resented the naturally skinny people around me.

My best gal pal, who also happens to be my roommate, is one of those naturally thin girls. I am going to refer to her as Sal, not to protect her identity but because this is actually her nickname-short for Salad- real name is Amanda. Don't ask.

We have been friends since we were 14, almost a decade. It could be a decade except she was mean to me for the first year. Excluded me because the mean girls told her to. What a bitch, right?

Somehow our friendship has lasted throughout high school, college, and young adulthood. She lived with me at my parents house during the summers, and we have also been roommates for the last three and a half years.

I am so thankful to have her as a friend, and I feel truly lucky to call her my best friend. But sometimes I completely resent her, and throw daggers at her with my eyes.

Sal LOVES food. She is constantly thinking about food. She gets really intense cravings and is always talking about food. She can eat large portions. She loves a good China Buffet (can we say trashy). At one point double cheeseburgers, ramen noodles, and frozen pizza were a regular staple in her diet.

For most of her life she has eaten whatever she wanted and remained rather small. She did gain some weight, but was never obese.

Because I have lived with her for so long she has impacted a lot of my eating habits. We have binged together, we have eaten until we were so full we could explode, and we have given into some unhealthy cravings.

When I had my aha moment, Sal was the person who came to the gym with me and got a membership. She has always, always, always been supportive of my weight loss. With every single pound that I lose, she is my personal cheer squad.

But for a loooonngg time, and even currently, I struggle to accept her support. She is not the reason that I gained weight. She did not shove french fries down my throat. She did not make me drunkenly eat a whole burrito. But I associate her with all of my bad, dark, ugly eating habits.

This is not right. And it is not fair to her. But it's just what I do. I can't help it. She is a constant reminder of my unhealthy addiction to food. She is a trigger to make me want to binge. And I project my anger over being obese onto her.

When she would cheer my weight loss I would be annoyed with her. Which doesn't even make sense. I should be thrilled to have someone like her in my life. Someone who supports me in a way that I cannot even support myself.

I get mad because she can still eat foods that I can't even look at without gaining weight (i.e. pizza rolls, ranch, french fries). She doesn't have to work out as hard as I have to. She doesn't have to measure out salad dressing every time she puts it onto a salad. She doesn't know what it's like to be 246 pounds. And even today, I stand at 180 pounds, and she will never know what it feels like to be this big.

It's not her fault that she has a fast metabolism. Nor is it my fault that I have a slow metabolism. It's not fair. But fairness is not going to make her fat or make me skinny. And this is something that I need to accept and move forward.

I need to stop playing the victim. By playing this I-was-fat-you-have-no-idea-how-it-feels card, I was making her feel bad. She was trying her damn hardest to support my journey. She stopped bringing bad foods into the apartment. She started attending work out classes with me. Once she even slapped an Oreo cookie out of my hand. I am not joking.
 
She is an awesome person to have on my side and I need to remember that. And equally I need to cheer her on. In the last year she has lost 20+ pounds and is building muscles. She has been lifting weights for 3 weeks and is already getting guns. Instead of being mad and jealous, I need to praise her.

When I told her that I was writing a post about her, she said that I should include a few fun facts about her:

1) You should put something in there about how hilarious I am.
- This is true, she makes everyone around her laugh. A lot.

2)  Also say how I have great PJ's.
-This is not true.

3) And I enjoy a good vodka drink.
-Very true.