Draft Week - My Fat Photo Philosophy

And here is where I overachieve! Post #5 for Draft Week, wherein my goal was to finish and publish four posts from my draft folder. It feels good to overachieve. It's not a thing I often do these days, so I'm going to bask in this moment and really soak it in.

I might even refer back to it over and over again for the next year. "Remember how I'm an overachiever?" "Oh, you know how I like to go above and beyond!" "Sometimes I do more than is expected of me."

(Can you hear me over the sound of me patting my own back?)

Anyway, I wrote this post last fall  (October 2017) after we went to Disneyland. I never published it because I worried that I wasn't being entirely truthful with what I wrote. This is a post about getting in the picture. I call it my "Fat Photo Philosophy." But I've gained ten more pounds since I wrote this, and I admit, it's getting harder and harder to get in the picture - especially if that picture is going to be on someone else's phone where I won't have control over it.

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This is a post about my weight.

(I figured I would just throw that out there so you can leave if you want. Weight-related posts aren't my favorite, so I don't blame you if you bail).

I'm currently the heaviest I've ever been. I'm bigger than I have been even nine months pregnant (and I look pregnant. I'm not saying that to be cruel to myself. It's just a matter of fact. Sometimes people look at my belly and give me a knowing smile. A lady in my ward has done this to me for about two years straight. I'm starting to wonder if she's just really bad at math because I could have had two babies in the time she's been eyeing my belly, and yet, no humans are escaping me).

Part of me isn't happy about it. Another part of me doesn't care one bit.

Two years ago, I was a different "heaviest I've ever been" (I was the heaviest I'd ever been but 17 27 pounds lighter than I am right now). I went to Disneyland that year, and I was so horrified by the photos afterward that I thought I'd found the motivation to change.

I lost a little bit of weight (about ten pounds), and then I gained about thirty pounds, putting me where I am currently.

Now I look back at those photos from two years ago, and I don't think I looked so bad.

Which is why I have the following "Fat Photo Philosophy:"

Even though I'm the biggest I've ever been, I'm still going to get in the picture,* and I'm still going to share photos of myself. Granted, there are photos that I will never share - everyone has the right to tuck away those bad angle photos and those "what is my face doing" images. But... I have a lot of photos that may not be flattering in the weight department, yet still show me experiencing joy and living a good life.

Why should I hesitate to share those just because my gut is sitting in my lap?

Also, someday I might be bigger and look back at those photos and say, "I can't believe I used to think I was so fat!"

Or maybe the opposite. Maybe I'll be thinner, and I can look back and see how much I've changed.

I won't get either of those opportunities if I don't get in the photos.**

*I will still whine about extended family photos. This has nothing to do with weight. It's just my Extended Family Photo Philosophy to complain and resist at all costs. I like my extended family, but I prefer to not stand close to them and hold still for long periods of time. 

**This philosophy was pondered and adopted while riding Splash Mountain and knowing that the Splash photo was not going to be pretty.