The Weight of Weight

All my life I've been afraid of a number. Terrified that someone would discover the number that shows on my scale and ... I don't know. Publish it in the paper? Tell my boss? Invalidate my existence because the number was too high?

One number and I've lived my life in fear of it.

Hello folks. My name is Lori and I currently weight 240 pounds. I'm 5 foot nothing in height so when I describe myself as having the shape of a beach ball, I'm not kidding.

This isn't the biggest I've ever been either. When I first moved to Hawaii I weighed about 276. I got down to 240 but then my knees started to really hurt and my snack-age went up and I was 250 and thought "no".

This isn't about weight loss. I finally, at age closer to 60 than not, realized that this, all of this craziness has been about a number.

Years ago I was told that at my height, my healthy weight is 100 pounds. Well that's interesting. I was 160 in high school. What's the fucking chance I'm going to ever weigh 100 pounds?

So I started to fear the number. My entire life I'd tell anybody anything about myself but never my weight. I've confessed my fears, my shames, my most embarrassing moments but I never told anyone how much I weigh.

I weigh 240 pounds today.

It's a number. One single motherfucking number that has had more control over my life than the people I love, the way I feel, more than everything.

It's never been about weight. It's always been about being told I should weigh 100 pounds and weighing more than twice that. It's about years of thinking if I could just get down to (fill in the blank) pounds then I'll be okay.

Just a stupid number.

Before anyone decides this is the time to come in and point out the health dangers of obesity and whatever else someone wants to do because they're a ridiculous human being, can I suggest you fuck off? This isn't about that. No fat person alive hasn't gotten the lectures, the tut-tutting, the loving concern from family, friends and strangers.

It isn't about that. It's about a number.

I finally realized that I no longer was afraid of that number. I'm not ashamed of it, I'm not defined by it. It's part of my journey and wherever the number goes, I'll work it out.

My name is Lori and I weigh 240 pounds. And for the first time in my entire life, I'm not bothered by it.