Showing posts with label obesity. Show all posts

What I Wish You Said....

At some point in everyone's life there comes a moment when you look back at a relationship, a job, an event where your friends around you offered suggestions, encouragement or support.  After that moment has passed retrospection usually follows.  As an analytical person, I spend a great deal of time looking back over tasks, jobs, positions and the like trying to determine the best course of action.  Did I follow the rules?  Did I meet my goal?  Was the outcome, the best outcome?

Photo Credit - Renee Sosanna Olson


One of my recent blog posts was a book review about a great book that helped me really sit back and look at what brought me bliss. This retrospection is all about understanding what brings you happiness and contentment.  Today I have a great job, a wonderful family and am working on getting my health to the best it can be for a 50 year old.  I may not ever be a kick-boxer, but I know that I will be able to take care of myself in my golden years, instead of relying on someone else to bathe me.

Over the last few years I have read everything I can get my hands on related to health and wellness. I have poured my soul into understanding the best course of action to fully take charge of my health, my well being and my surroundings.  I took a year to live in an RV in the desert just to come to terms with what is really important for me.



What I needed to do was read that my weight, while maybe normal for someone on a SAD eating plan, it wasn't normal for my body. In those articles I learned that all the oil I was putting in my body, all the sugar was killing me. And I needed to change that.



I commented this morning on a article about kicking wellness to the curb on a page called "Fat Fe..... Wi...."  Name blurred to protect the innocent.  I was met with the reply of, your comment is off topic and will be deleted shortly.  I removed my comment and un-liked the page.  You see, sometimes people, especially fat people who are unhealthy (and I can speak to this because I was one), don't like to be told they are accountable for their own actions.  This article was speaking to how people fall into stereotypes and go into one fad diet after another to try to "fix" what isn't broken. Because you know, if you just love fat people (who are unhealthy) they'll be fine.  To that I say bullshit.



Fat (who are unhealthy) people don't need to be told their beautiful. We need to be told we're in danger. And I say that with a loud fucking yell because I heard from all my friends how beautiful I was at 300 pounds.  I heard them tell me what I was loved and I was find just the way I was.  But you know what?  I wasn't fine. I was close to death. I couldn't breathe when I walked up a slight incline. I couldn't sleep well because the fat around my throat was choking me while I slept. What I need was someone to come to me and say:

Photo Credit Elijah Olson
Pic 1  July 2016 - Pic 2 July 2019
128 lbs lost

  1. Hey, Renee, you should really get rid of all the processed food in your cabinets.  
  2. Hey Renee, you should toss out that milk because, you know you're not a fucking baby cow and you shouldn't drink it.
  3. Hey Renee, you can't breathe because the fat around your neck is getting so think that its choking you to death while you sleep.
  4. Hey Renee, your knee and hip arthritis is so bad because your knees weren't intended to carry around three hundred fucking pounds.
  5. Hey Renee, stop eating pizza or you're going to die, way early and way painfully.


I completely understand being a support system for those who are unhealthy.  You see my weight, my size was directly related to my health. Today I'm a much healthier person and a side effect of my new eating habits are having lost 128 lbs. My blood work is amazing now.  I no longer have issues with sleep, my knees, my hip or my fibro. I have completely reversed my type 2 diabetes and have seem to have no continued issues with my congestive heart failure.


Photo Credit - Screen Cap UNC Health

Photo Credit - Screen Cap UNC Health
Just so I'm clear, I'm not saying we need to be ugly to people who are overweight. I'm not saying you need to call names or shun anyone.  What I am saying is look out for your tribe. If you see someone struggling, lend a hand.  A real hand.  Don't tell someone a dress looks great on them when it doesn't.  A real friend will tell you that you have a booger showing. A real friend will tell you that you need to address certain things.  Be someone who helps straighten a crown when NO ONE is watching.

I'm also not saying that everyone over a certain size is unhealthy.  We are all different. We all have different body make ups and there is no perfect size.  Your body will tell you what is right for you when you give it the nutrients it needs.  I figured this out the hard way.

I am putting this offer out there.  Anyone at all who is interested in learning about WFPB lifestyle and healing your body holistically feel free to reach out to me via this blog or on my support page at Real Rations.  I share science based resources to learning to live and heal your body using food. I share recipes in my group Real Rations Recipes as well as welcome stories and before and afters here.  Everything I share there is free.  My goal is to help those out there who were like me.  Those who were morbidly obese and utterly hopeless.  Those who felt as though they wanted to die.

I'm not trying to change your mind on plant based eating. That's not my business and frankly, I don't have the energy for that fight.  I'm here for those who want to change.  Who want to try something new. Those who need to try something new.  For those, this message is for you.  I see you.  I hear you. You are important. You are worth it.  <3








Wait! It’s just Weight.

So it’s the beginning of the new year and everyone is going crazy on their diets for the New Year.  Gym memberships soar, workout videos sell like hotcakes and by the end of February no one will be using any of them.  In 2007 Tara Parker-Pope wrote that 40% of those serviced ditched their resolutions because they were just too busy.


I was doing really well at my weight loss last year this time.   I was down to a size 10 and 8 was fast approaching.  I was working out every single morning and then my life had a sudden change.  Hubby ended up in the hospital with emergency surgery and my mother moved in.  Hubby got better and was back at work and I was here to take care of my mother.  She stayed with us from January – July.  In July I moved her into a nursing home, my sister freaked out and took her out of the home, then started telling everyone I was stealing her social security money.  I was devastated.  I stopped going to my grandma’s.  I stopped going everywhere.  

I stay in my house now, barely ever leaving.  I go outside to feed my chickens, or to clean up the dog’s yard, but that’s it.  Hubby has to force me to go into town and into stores. I have panic attacks when we leave the house.  Obviously since I stopped moving, I've begun to put on weight.  I still eat the same; I could however lower those portions a bit.  I’m back up to a size 16.  I like being a size 16, shape wise.  I believe that curvy “Goddess” built women are so sexy.  I can also say that hubby is very “Sir Mixalot”, if you get my meaning. 



So what’s going on?  Why am I talking about this again?  Yesterday a dear friend of mine shared a blog post from Dianne Sylvan, called Ten Rules for Fat Girls.  As I was reading, my chubby little heart was filled with joy.  Finally someone who got it. Finally someone was speaking up for the fat girls.  I quickly shared the post and liked her page.  Then I went back to start looking at her other entries.  I was just as quickly disheartened as I saw that Dianna was an author who’s picture I had to dig for on her webpage.  Her page is decorated with “beautiful” skinny girls.  So no matter how much she was telling me to be proud of whom I was in her rules, here she was contributing to the sizeism in popular media by not using her position to elevate fat acceptance.  I’m not saying she can’t have a skinny girl as her main character, there are many reasons for having that character but I was a bit puzzled and felt as though it were a mixed message. For more info on this I recommend checking out "Killing Us Softly" by Jean Kilbourne. Ed.D. 

I spend enough of my life feeling not good enough.  There’s a lot in the media already that tells me I’m not tall enough, or thin enough.  I’m not the right skin toned or have the right hair color and with their product I can be right.  I literally sit sometimes and just cry.


My friend then shared this video.






I want to be able to embrace who I am.  I want to be able to love me for me, and not for the size of my jeans.  I don’t want to feel bad when I look in the mirror or embarrassed when I see someone who saw me in my “skinny jeans”.  I look at those pictures and feel like such a failure now.  I’m still healthy.  I’m not hurting.  I’m not eating crap.  But for some reason I just can’t put that bad down.  Even when I read stories on NPR about how the BMI is junk science, I still hold myself accountable and expect myself to measure up to those guides.


It is self-defeating and abusive.  If someone sent me an energy request on my blog for guidance in a situation where I was their partner and I was treating them how I treated me….   Well I’d tell them that their partner was abusive and they should seek out counseling or leave the relationship.  Yet, I allow myself to pick up that bat and beat the shit out of myself daily.

It may take me a while.  I’m a work in progress.  Next Month I’ll be 44 years old.  I’m on a new goal.  A new resolution.  By age 45, I want to be able to say, I love me.  I love who I am, what I stand for and most importantly how I look.

After all, you know what they say about fat-bottomed girls.





Namaste and Blessed Be!
Sosanna
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