I’m not quite sure what I thought would happen when I went public with the blog. I mean, I knew that there wasn’t going to be paparazzi camped on my doorstep when I threw my front door open the next day, but up until voting for the UK Blog Awards went live I’d pretty much been writing this in secret. Oh, you know, I’d shared a few of the posts on Facebook as you do, but I never actually spelled out that the blog was written by yours truly.
Overnight I turned into a loud and proud shameless hussy as I claimed the blog as my own and lobbied for votes. I was genuinely overwhelmed by the reaction, I had some awesome messages of support and for a couple of hours it was all very exciting, until everyone’s news feeds filled up with other stuff and the moment had passed.
Telling my friends that that the skinny girl trying to break out was the one who was zipped inside my fat suit was massive. Well, let me qualify that; for me, it was massive. Not because I was putting myself out there as a wannabe writer, but because I was coming right out and admitting I was fat. Like they hadn’t noticed, right?
Thing is, some of them wouldn’t have known that. The last time I actually saw some of the people I’m in touch with on Facebook for example, I was doing my very best impression of being a skinny string bean. They’d remember me as the one who lost all that weight, who looked amazing and did so well. The one who gracefully accepted all their compliments and swore she’d never put the weight back on again…yeah look how well that worked out.
That’s the thing with being a yo-yo dieter. Leaving your house and hanging out in places where you might bump into folk you know is terrific when you’re on your way down the scale…you want to be seen, by every man and his dog. You want people to go home and say OMG you’ll never guess who I bumped into, she looked amazing!
On your way up the scale, you judge the outing to be a success only if you’ve managed to avoid seeing anyone you know, because if you do, you die a little bit on the inside as you smile and say hello, all the while mentally calculating exactly how much weight you’ve piled on since the last time you saw them. It’s excruciating. And we all know that ‘you look well’ is a euphemism for fuck me who ate all the pies!
Most horrifying of all is the prospect of bumping into an ex…I’ve lived the last seven years in fear of bumping into Mr Muscle, which is ridiculous. Why should I give a monkey’s chuff what he thinks, with his perfect pecs and his disdain for fatties. I do though, even now…if I saw him I’d want to die on the spot.
So, stepping out of the shadows, fat suit exposed in all it’s glory was a big step. Since the day I started back on the path to Mooseville, I’ve been very careful not to allow any pictures of the fat me, anywhere. I used to pepper my Facebook posts with photos, but not in recent times…heaven forbid someone might realise I’m not living that carefree skinny life. I don’t know why I worried – it turns out people were interested, supportive but it hardly rocked their world.
I’ve got a foot in both camps as of right now…sort of like show and tell, without the show. The cat’s out of the bag, I’ve ‘fessed up and told the world I’m wearing the fat suit, and I’m okay with that because we all know it’s temporary, right? I’m headed for Skinny Town and I’m not looking back. But lets just agree to keep the cameras locked away for now…one step at a time 🙂
