Not Because Someone Else Said I Was Fat

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Okay so some of my readers might be wondering why I had such issues with my family pointing out my weight gain the other day. Granted most of you practically started a Jia Army in my defense, the question still remained:

Why was I so angry?

Allow me to explain some things about my family. All of my Grandparents were generally overweight. I have one remaining Grandmother and she has diabetes that has cost her half her leg, and most of the other foot. She is wheelchair bound. My other Grandmother died of heart complications but not before a heart attack and a stroke several years prior to her death. My grandfathers too died before they should have due to illnesses that could have been prevented.

I have a total of five aunts and seven uncles total. Five of them can be considered obese. Each of the others has been at one point or another hospitalized before the age of 45 due to illnesses either caused by poor diet, lifestyle or being overweight.

Heart Disease 

Lung Cancer

Skin Cancer

High Cholesterol

Diabetes

Cervical Cancer

Blood Clots

These were words I knew the meaning of before I was ten.

Given this information, it shouldn't be surprising that I am at the weight I am at.

Except for my cousins.

Within a ten year age difference on either side, I am the largest of all my female cousins, and most of the men.

• 19 of the boys played football in High School and/or College
• 1 holds a record at the University of Utah for 2nd longest field goal
• 1 has been featured in Muscle & Fitness Magazine
• 4 have been mistaken for professional models
• 1 of them actually is
• 3 were Cheerleaders
• 1 played College Basketball
• 1 is less than half my size despite having given birth to twins (and currently pregnant)
• 3 are Rolley Derby girls in the Wasatch Rolley Derby
• 2 have run 15k marathons
• 1 has run a Triathlon

 These are my sisters..

They are each half my size.

My mother weighed 110 pounds at her heaviest.

She was pregnant with me at the time.

These are where my issues are.
This is where my bitterness rises when my family brings up my weight.

Despite the fact that I understand my weight gain and poor health is my own fault...

I feel like an anomaly.

A bad combination.

I took all the wrong genes.

Left behind the right ones.

I had them once . . . 

But they somehow got lost as time passed.

I'm figuring it out on my own.

And that's another reason I get pissed when my weight and my health is brought up.

I AM AWARE

I have already had my own waking moment. I have looked in the mirror with a clear understanding that I am unhealthy. And I WILL choose to move forward and get my life back. 

My health back. 

Those skinny jeans back.

And I'll be damned if anyone else thinks that THEY were the key to my success. That their brutal honesty was my breaking point. Because I've been broken for a while now. 

I will move forward because of me.

Not because someone else said I was fat.

And until I gain control of my weight, my health and my sanity, I take solace in the fact that I may not be the skinniest girl in my family. But I still have the biggest rack.

PS: This post is to be read with empowerment and not like a whiny little bitch.

Update: It has apparently become necessary for me to point out that no one in my family called me "fat". Several of them apparently "noticed" that I was getting very heavy and unhealthy. Apparently my words here have offended certain family members that are eager to help me. So this is my message to them:

If you know how. Speak up. If you don't, then offer support. But hearing things second hand does nothing.