Closing in on my 50lb Goal & Thoughts on Workplace Descrimination

OMG ... I am so close to having lost 50lbs I honestly can't believe that I let this sneak up on me like this.

WOOHOO!   I'm super excited.

Weigh in this morning: 252.4

I have a second interview this Friday for an internal job I applied for, and here is why I want to talk about it. 

Nicole at Beauty and the Bypass was asking a question about discrimination at work for being overweight.   I wanted to reply to that post, but the answer is long, complicated and biased to my experience.

As someone who has been varying degrees of slightly overweight to morbidly obese, but also brainwashed by my parents to think that I was a huge hosebeast from a very young age, I have a hard time telling when I was actually overweight and when I was just a little chunky and when I was actually normal sized.

Honestly, I still do some days.

Anyway - absolutely I've been discriminated against as a fat person at every job I've ever had. Maybe not for promotions, but as a person. To combat it, I was hyper sensitive about doing good work, being competent and making sure that I was in totally control of my job and duties.  Mostly, I think people looked at me and thought nasty things about my fatness.  However, I made sure that no one could say that I was lazy and didn't do my job well.  However, even with all these efforts, I never was invited to work on any extra committees, projects and given praise for my contributions.

But, that is a big but.... I really believe that the biggest factor holding me back has always been me. 

I'm the one that thinks I can't do it, I'm the one that scared, I'm the one that doesn't want to be out in public looking a fat mess, I'm the one that thinks people are laughing at me, I'm the one that thinks I don't deserve to be paid well, appreciated and promoted. I worry that people don't want to sit next to me at dinner tables, meetings, any place where I might have intruded on their personal space. I worried about tight elevator rides, getting in vehicles with co-workers and all kinds of strange little daily things.

When I went to this last interview, my attitude had changed.  The interviewer told me about the events planning part of this role, and I thought about how great that would be.  An hour later I realized, that I hadn't even thought about how embarrassed I would have be to meet hoteliers after dealing with them on the phone, that I wasn't scared to wear dress shoes all day walking around.

50+lbs ago, that would have been the first thought.  The job involves some travel - no problem, I fit into airplanes now. 

I also wasn't worried about the first impression that I would make, that I would walk into the interview and the first thing that they would notice wouldn't be how massive I was.  Now, I just look kind of chunky, but I wouldn't say that I look so out of place anymore.

So I think that there is discrimination, I also think that I am a significant amount of my problem. Sadly there will always be "something", either I'm too fat, too tall, too ugly, too stupid, too canadian, too married, too freckled, too smart, too whatever....  In the end all of those things are more about the person that is thinking them, then about me.  So, I have to just work on the me.

Anyway, Nicole, thank you for putting that into my brain to think about.  I know that there is a lot more to this, but its good fodder for starting a conversation - even if it is just with myself!!  :)