Just thought I’d post and update to this.

I got a post card in the mail today. I haven’t read it myself, but from what K. told me the gist is essentially “thanks, but no thanks.” I can’t say I’m that surprised. The woman never got back with me after I called her with the information she requested, nor did she respond to multiple messages from my group leader. Frankly, I think that was pretty shitty of her. I’m not saying she should have gone out of her way to keep me in the loop, but a simple acknowledgement of the fact that she had everything she needed from me and had put my name in the hat would have been nice.

I’m trying very hard not to be upset about this.

It isn’t working very well.

It’s not that winning this contest would have been the end all, be all of my existence. If I really wanted to fly up to New York for a weekend I could do so on my own dime, and would probably have a lot more fun hanging out with my friends over the Duchess of York. And yeah, a 5K clothing spree would have been nice – but they likely would have gotten me a lot of clothes that I wouldn’t wear 9/10th’s of the time (as I highly doubt they would have let me go t-shirt shopping).

No, I’m not bummed over the fact that I didn’t win the stuff. I wanted to win for other reasons.

Let me be frank, here. Most of you didn’t know me when I was at my highest weight, and many of you who did have expressed having a hard time picturing me that big these days. Hell, I don’t remember it all that well. In fact, I have such a hard time remembering it that I’m starting to feel like my current weight is as inhibiting to me as my previous top end of roughly 420 pounds was.

In short, I’ve been feeling like I’m the fat guy again. I’ve started noticing it more keenly when I take up more space than the person next to me, or when my clothing looks wrong on me. When I see a gain on the scale, it’s damned near devastating. I’m having a hard time shaking off the “little gains” and keeping them from turning into bigger ones (evidenced by the fact that in the last month I’ve gained five pounds). Exercise? Something else I haven’t really done in a month. I started walking again this week, but the whole Yourself! Fitness thing seems to be completely trashed. I just can’t get the motivation together to turn it on.

It would have been nice to have some kind of external validation of what I’ve done. Something outside of what has become “normal” for me. I get a lot of support for what I’ve done, and continue to do, but…Shit…It’s just so hard to keep the level of dedication that is required for me to actually lose weight. I’ve done a fairly good job of staying in the same area, but I have a lot left to lose – and I need to do it. I need to, at least, get back down under 250. My self-esteem has taken a real fucking nose dive over the fact that I can’t seem to get off my ass enough to beat that number down again.

So yeah…it would have been nice to win. To have what I’ve done put under a national spotlight. To get some acknowledgement of what I’ve overcome.

Instead, I’m sitting her feeling like the response I got was “Sorry, but you’re still too fat.”

And I hate that.

Bleah.