Field Note: I Mapped It Out Myself 🧭

It is hard, emotionally, to live among people who don't support you.

Mostly, that is what I have experienced.

It is especially hard when you're working on weight, body image, and fitness—things that are already tangled up with how you see yourself and how other people see you.

My dad didn't like fat people, especially fat women. He made that known.

That was not helpful.

Because I didn't grow up pretty. I got overweight. Eating was a way to enjoy something in my life when so much else sucked.

And I quit playing sports because I was being bullied and couldn't cope or toughen up. I wish I hadn't, because I loved soccer, basketball, and volleyball. But I couldn't take being around a tribe of girls who threw potshots at me when I was already feeling so terrible about my body going through puberty and seemingly growing enormous on its own.

Junior high was brutal.

I tried to cover up. Hide my body as much as possible.

For years.

And I look back at the pictures now, and while, yes, I was a little bigger, I was not what I thought I was.

I felt enormous.

I wasn't.

But I took my weight on as a serious project. I changed how I ate. I discovered exercise. And sleep. The insomnia passed, and that actually helped. Then, almost accidentally, because I wanted to get away from the house, I discovered my love of biking again.

Later, I joined a gym. I took some classes.

I figured it out.

It took time, but over the years it showed.

At around thirty years old, at five-foot-seven, I got down to 120 pounds. It wasn't a scary number for me. I was active and felt good. I'd even started running.

But somehow I was made to feel as though I had done something wrong.

By relatives.

By friends closest to my heart.

People I loved hurt me for losing weight in some of the same ways I had been hurt for gaining it.

It didn't last anyway, because bodies have lives.

A couple of years later, I had a pregnancy and a baby, and I was 145. That drew its own criticism. And friends didn't really care for Mom Dawn with her little monkey hanging onto her.

Clingy baby.

I was tired a lot. Run down. Trying, but not getting much farther than Target or Starbucks or the mall.

The zoo was my exotic trip.

I landed at 155, and there were other kinds of comments. I heard my dad's voice again in them. I struggled with 155 for a while, eventually saw 145 again, and then came another pregnancy.

Hello, 170.

And some people seemed happy to see it.

It pleased them that I had failed.

They didn't seem to think, Wow, Dawn had another baby. Way to go. She has two little ones. Dawn might need some help. Maybe she could use some breaks.

It was more like:

Hmm.

See?

Hmm. I knew it all the time.

What can you do when you see a smirk on the face of someone who is supposed to love you? Someone who seems to feel a little better about themselves because you got bigger and retained a larger, softer body?

But I have to give my body credit.

A body that grew two human beings.

A body that fed them and held them and cared for them.

A body that lost all sorts of sleep for them and repeatedly got sick with all the little viruses they brought home.

That body had been doing something.

Exhausting itself, but there.

For them.

After that, I spent years somewhere around 155–160, sometimes making my way back to 145.

And that is more or less where the struggle has lived.

But "struggle" leaves a lot out.

I've had surgery. I've had back problems and nerve pain. I've lost close family members. I lost a job.

I lost friends, some of whom I still have no idea what happened to.

Just poof.

Years matter not.

I experienced workplace bullying and harassment—the sort of thing you somehow imagine grown adults will have outgrown, until you discover they haven't.

That made me very angry.

Frustrated.

No matter how hard I worked, I seemed to only be wanted if I was failing. Winning wasn't something other people seemed to want from me.

They want me to fail.

That is what I learned.

Life happened to my body because life happened to me.

And still, I have built myself back into a fitness routine.

Not somebody else's program.

Mine.

I bike 5.5 miles regularly. I do full-body strength workouts with my five- and ten-pound weights. I swim in the sound with my son almost every day when we can. I walk my dog twice a day, about two miles altogether, because summer heat is decidedly not this shepherd's first love.

And somewhere along the way, I discovered that taking care of my body wasn't only about taking things away.

I discovered that I love Greek yogurt and Mediterranean dishes. Ironically, my cooking game is way up now because I value what I'm eating. I'm aware of what I've grown in my garden and what I'm putting on my plate.

Lime juice and lemon juice have become little pleasures and a great way to use less heavy salad dressing. Nuts and seeds have been wonderful, and I've noticed they help my digestion.

So many good things have come out of studying food and flavors.

I love craisins.

I love sweet bell peppers.

And I love cilantro! I thought I was allergic to it and discovered I'm not.

And hummus.

Lord, I love that too.

Garlic or red chili peppers?

Yes.

And cheeses. Fresh cheeses.

Delightful.

So I am eating well.

Better than I ever have.

I eat protein-forward meals. I eat fresh greens and vegetables. I drink plenty of fluids. I fast and restrict calories on some days because I have learned how my own rhythm works.

And I leave room for pleasure.

I like a couple of nights when discipline comes off the table. I like curling up on the couch with a good movie, a lovely glass of wine, and something crunchy, salty, creamy, or sweet.

That isn't a deviation from my life.

It is my life.

Recently I saw 171 on the scale.

Now I'm back around 164, and something else is happening that matters more to me: muscle tone is returning.

I can see my biceps taking shape.

I can find the lines of my abdomen again.

The dips at the sides of my waist are becoming more pronounced.

My middle is beginning to streamline.

I'm working on it.

But do I have support?

No.

Do I have somebody helping me do this, encouraging me, or cheering when another little piece falls into place?

Not one.

It is me, myself, and I on a road I developed.

And perhaps that's why I remember so clearly what it felt like to make progress while surrounded by people who undercut it.

I remember losing weight and hearing that it wouldn't last.

I remember people turning accomplishment into suspicion.

I remember learning that sometimes another person's progress doesn't inspire people.

Sometimes it irritates them.

Sometimes another person's setback seems to comfort them.

Whatever their reasons were belonged to them.

But I experienced not being supported.

I experienced being undercut.

And I don't want to keep company with people who need my foibles and setbacks in order to feel comfortable with themselves.

This time, at least, I am happy not to be surrounded by those voices.

Maybe life will eventually offer up some friends who can support me. People who can say, You're doing great. Keep going. People whose own sense of worth isn't threatened by watching somebody else become stronger.

I'd like that.

Until then, I know something now that I didn't always know:

I know what I can do.

I've done it before.

I know how to feed myself.

I know how to move.

I know how to rest.

I know how to return after life knocks everything sideways.

I know how to make room for pleasure without abandoning myself.

I know how to begin again.

And nobody handed me the map.

I mapped it out myself.

And this time, it feels more like adopting a lifestyle.

I'll be a lifetime traveler.

There may never be a finish line with cheering crowds, family and friends waiting to congratulate me.

Maybe there doesn't need to be.

There is a road.

There is the body that carries me down it.

There are bicycles and swims and walks and weights. There is good food growing in the garden and lemon squeezed over dinner. There are cozy nights on the couch with wine and something delicious. There are mornings when I begin again.

There is no finish line.

Just me.

Loving life.