My niche is natural weight loss. I help people lose weight without surgery or pills so they can be thin like me.
I was a fat kid, a fat teen, a fat woman, The Fat Lady in Accounting, The Fat Lady in the Navy, and there was no other word to describe me than “fat”.
By a wonderful turn of events, I lost “half my size” with four years of effort, and then all of the sudden, for the first time in my life, I was thin at the age of 50. I’m almost 60 now and you would think I’d be used to it, but I’m not. I'm doing better than in the first year; and here is how that went.
The very first moment I was thin is in the middle photo of this poster. The photo on the left is me at my heaviest and the photo on the right is after I lost another 15 pounds so I could be "normal" on the dreaded BMI Chart.
The middle photo is a progress photo taken on October 5, 2011. I was having them taken each month and rarely paid attention except to upload them to a weight loss forum I was on. I was too busy losing weight to stop and look at myself. But when I saw this photo come up for processing, I knew I was done losing weight. I finally had the thing I had always dreamed of: ME – not looking fat.
The first days of being thin were a letdown. No one cared. I didn’t even care by that time. Now that I wasn’t fat, I thought I looked haggard, wrinkled, old, and even more unattractive than usual. Now that I wasn't fat, I did not have to weigh in. Now that I was fat I did not have to think about how much I had to lose. So now what?
The first year after I lost weight – I lost everything else. My fat friends could no longer stand to see me so they were gone. Thin women thought I was trying to take their husbands. Random men started looking at my boobs and trying to pick me up. And all I could see was ugly old me – worse than before and still with that big fat stomach - forgetting how big it really was in the past.
My first time being thin was the first time I became visible. No one looks at fat people except in disgust. I never knew how much I loved my anonymity until it was gone. I was unable to handle people noticing me like they never had before.
Luckily, most people in my small town could no longer recognize me and just thought I was just some skinny bitch. After the third time I was called that I no longer cried.
If they did recognize me, they would gasp in shock and say, "I thought you would be dead - not thin!" After the third time I was told that I no longer cried.
I thought I would be healthy if I became thin. Instead 2012 was a constant year of severe illnesses, surgeries and injuries. One of my doctors told me all this bad health effect was happening because I was thin and my body could not handle the stress. I took this photo of my reflection in the hospital door thinking nothing would ever help. I was still always going to be sick and in the hospital.
Through it all – no matter what – I did not gain weight. I have never had a problem with my weight again. Because my first time being thin is going to be the only time I make this change if I have an ounce of strength left to fight.
My biggest fear when being fat was that I would die and be found by people who would agree that of course I should be dead because I was so fat.
At one point in 2012, I was in fact lying in a ditch for days, unable to move, and waiting for death. As I came in and out of consciousness, all I could think of was to be grateful not to be fat when they found me. When they did find me, I wasn't dead, and no one talked about my weight at all. They just dragged me out of there and back the hospital again.
You might think this is a strange story. It’s not. I am very active in weight loss groups now and most long-term fat people who finally become thin go through similar hard times in those first years.
How can you be thin if you never have been thin before? You have no choice but to figure it out unless you gain the weight back. Sadly, 75% of people do just that. Staying thin is not hard physically, but it takes a toll on your psyche that you can never prepare for.
When I reached my fifth year of being thin, I got an email from one of my groups telling that only 5% of people are so lucky.
I do not have any answers about how to deal with this new life. I only know my first time being thin is better than being fat because everyone knows this is true.
This is my entry for the MY-NICHE contest by 
My next post for this weekly contest is here:
My Niche is Natural Weight Loss