![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
anna_wingFrom what I read on-line while losing weight, some people who had successfully reached a healthy weight sometimes found their new, slim selves very disorienting, especially those who had been very fat for a very long time. Being very fat had become part of their sense of self, so getting used to the change took some time. The ones who had been fat from childhood had particular problems, which I suppose would make sense. I never had that issue since I was never more than at the borderline of overweight and obese, and then only for less than a decade. But there were a few, completely unexpected things I had to get used to; none of them should have been surprising, but I was surprised anyway.
(a) My feet lost fat too, so old shoes suddenly fit again and new ones got loose.
(b) My local supermarket is on the first floor of its building, and has those sloping travelator things instead of an escalator (Google says that its proper name is "inclined moving walk"). Suddenly, one day, I found myself behind a full trolley, sliding gently and inexorably down the slope towards another unsuspecting shopper...I had to fling my whole weight back and dig in my heels to brake it. And manoeuvring a full trolley around corners suddenly got tricky too, when I didn't have those extra kilos as leverage.
(c) I've had to go back to being really careful with alcohol. It takes much less to affect me now, and it didn't take a lot before. My whisky-and-water is now basically whisky-flavoured water (at least it will eke out the good Japanese whisky, given that bottles of that age are now far and away too expensive for me), and my favourite cocktail now has to come with a jug of water to accompany it...
Of course there's all the good stuff, like the osteoarthritis hurting much less, and being able to get up off the floor without using my hands, or to kneel and fish under the sofa for Lap-Cat every night (he likes being flopped onto his side and then swooshed around on the floor like a furry Swiffer) without having to think about it. But now every time I do the big quarterly shop, there's this slight uncertainty as I load the trolley and head for the travelator down....
(a) My feet lost fat too, so old shoes suddenly fit again and new ones got loose.
(b) My local supermarket is on the first floor of its building, and has those sloping travelator things instead of an escalator (Google says that its proper name is "inclined moving walk"). Suddenly, one day, I found myself behind a full trolley, sliding gently and inexorably down the slope towards another unsuspecting shopper...I had to fling my whole weight back and dig in my heels to brake it. And manoeuvring a full trolley around corners suddenly got tricky too, when I didn't have those extra kilos as leverage.
(c) I've had to go back to being really careful with alcohol. It takes much less to affect me now, and it didn't take a lot before. My whisky-and-water is now basically whisky-flavoured water (at least it will eke out the good Japanese whisky, given that bottles of that age are now far and away too expensive for me), and my favourite cocktail now has to come with a jug of water to accompany it...
Of course there's all the good stuff, like the osteoarthritis hurting much less, and being able to get up off the floor without using my hands, or to kneel and fish under the sofa for Lap-Cat every night (he likes being flopped onto his side and then swooshed around on the floor like a furry Swiffer) without having to think about it. But now every time I do the big quarterly shop, there's this slight uncertainty as I load the trolley and head for the travelator down....
no subject
Date: 2021-09-03 01:29 am (UTC)In spite of dropping 18 kilos I remain an expensive drunk.
My body image has stayed the same. I feel no thinner now than before. Except in taxis where I no longer have to squirm about trying to find the seatbelt buckle because now there's room between me and it.
no subject
Date: 2021-09-03 05:20 pm (UTC)