The joy and discomfort of becoming visible

After my last boring blog, I decided to revert back to my old weight loss blogging because of all the nasty emails I got. "Georgia, shut your pie hole. Leave work at work" and other various messages led me to such a decision. What was I thinking?

The topic of my discussion today is a result of much thought over some changes that have occurred in my life. When you're morbidly obese, you sort of disappear. It's an oxy moron of sorts, and one of life's cruel ironies: Despite being so large that you can't be ignored, you're not small enough for people to pay attention to you. You become very complacent in that position or you fight against it. In my case, my personality had to become bigger than I was to avoid being ignored. Of course there are some that see past all the layers of adipose tissue, but most people can't. I can't blame them; I find myself doing the same thing. A guy has to be pretty good looking for me to consider going out with him. I'm likely shutting out a lot of good guys that way.

Since losing 100+ pounds I have somehow become fairly visible again, and can feel the visibility increase with each pound I decrease. There's a lot of joy in that. I am more confident in everyday situations. I like the male attention. I'm suddenly caring about having a six-pack. But there's also much discomfort in it. When I was over 300 pounds I didn't have to worry about responding to men, or even having everyday conversations with them. They just didn't happen. But now...now I have to re-learn how to talk to men. It's all very uncomfortable. A welcome change, but one that I seemingly know nothing about.

In addition, I'm having to re-frame what I think when people stare at me. Then other day I was in a grocery store and this guy was staring. At first I thought "Keep staring at the freak, buddy," only to remember that I'm not of a size where people stare at you because of your size. Again, a welcome discomfort, but a discomfort all the same. Isn't there some sort of post-fat boot campt out there? There are so many books out there on how to lose weight, but hardly any that address changes that occur after you've lost it. If anyone has a suggestion, I'd gladly welcome it!