Taking Off the Fat Suit

Since September 1st of last year I have slowly been taking the fat suit off. It is because I made a very conscious decision to not want to wear it any more. Wearing a fat suit took a lot of decisions in itself. No one decides to wear a fat suit merely because they like to eat. I think the whole idea of the merry, fat person is a myth. Kind of like Santa. Who wears a fat suit.
I don't know how it is for men, but for women I think a lot of the decision to wear one has to do with sexuality. It might be a fear of it. Or a fear of unwanted attention. Although when you are heavy you feel like you desperately want the attention of men and you HATE thin women. Because they get it every day. How often does a fat woman get a man to open the door for her? I have noticed more attention in the past week just in the form of men who talk to me. Yesterday a man in the grocery line talked to me. Not in a come-on or hit-on me way, but just a friendly way. When I am heavy that never happens. A man spoke to me in the gym the other day. That never happened when I was heavier. I think normal sized men must hold some type of fear from a past heavy woman who was obsessed with them and just thought if he only just KNEW me and realized what a NICE PERSON I am, he would love me. I know I have been that woman, but now I understand it from the man's perspective. Of course, my fiance was always nice to me, even when I gained weight, but he treats me slightly different now, because in the male world, they all know that someone out there is better than them and you might leave them.
Losing the fat suit can destroy relationships and not just between a man and woman. My mom is scared I will get thin. She calls me on this every time I tell her I am losing weight. Last time, she practically screamed at me to not lose more weight. She questioned me why I want to lose more. I don't think this is the question she should be asking. She should be asking herself why it is so threatening to her.
I have thin women friends who refuse to acknowledge my weight loss. I can't talk to it about them. And these are very thin women. I have a fat coworker in my office that will not acknowledge it even though everyone else here notices it. In her mind, she still puts the fat suit back on me when I come in to work.
I also still have the fat suit on in my head some days. Some days I take off the part I haven't even lost yet. It is so mental. I tried on swim suits last week and saw the fat suit in the mirror. I put on jeans today that were looser and probably feel thinner than I look today.
I am at the point where sometimes I am fearful and almost feel like putting it back on because it is after all, much safer for me. It is a suit I have taken on and off for almost 50 years and I am at a crucial point now. I am getting the attention, am getting noticed for my efforts and some days I would just like to be invisible. The owner of my yoga studio emailed me some info and told me I looked great. Now for some reason, I am almost embarrassed to go back. They have seen me lose the fat suit over the months and it is almost as though I want to be unnoticed. I don't want the recognition in a way of ever having worn the fat suit.
There is also the stress factor. My daughter stressed me out last night in a major huge way. Usually that kind of stress just sits here in my huge body and just makes me feel awful. It makes me feel sorry for myself because not only does this person I dearly love just constantly dump her crap on me but I am FAT to boot. Now I don't feel that. I didn't feel that huge body full of stress. I was able to forget that and think about today and how I am going to get rid of more of my fat suit.
In a former post I wrote about a friend who had disappeared from emailing me about her weight loss. Today she sent this huge accountability email detailing how she was going to start over AGAIN. So I was right, she did fail, but she is going to get back on TODAY. Day 1. I will email her but am carefully thinking of how I can be supportive and yet helpful too. She really wants to do this but has one big weight albatross, literally. Her husband weighs about 350 pounds and is a walking heart attack about to happen. He gets on the wagon with her and then gets off and it derails her every time. She does realize this but of course wants to get him on board. Hard situation. It really is.