Outside my inside

I am fat.

That's not a self-deprecating comment.  It is acceptance.  The closest I've come to accepting that fact.

I am fat.

I regularly tell myself that I am heavy.  Large.  That I carry it well.  That I'm not really that bad.  That I'm a skinny, fit person inside and all I have to is bring that person out.
And when I listen closely, there is a voice that says I don't have to believe any of this; that I'm just fine.

But, I am fat.  I accept it now.  And I know that I will need to keep accepting it, over and over and over again.

I can look in the mirror and see a man with kind eyes, with a friendly smile and a slightly greying beard.  I see a man that has been through a lot of trials and tribulations.  I see a man who has survived and succeeded.  I see a man I love.

Yet, in all my work to accept myself, to find the self esteem, to seek out and work through the emotions that control my eating...I forgot to accept the physical state of my body.  I denied it because I was not "that" person.  I was someone else I was discovering inside.  And I ignored the person I am on the outside.  I still do.

But I can't do that anymore.  I must accept that I am fat; that I am inhabiting an unhealthy body; that the body that gives me life isn't something separate from me....it is me.  My physical self.

I am a soul.  I am a mind.  I am a thought.  I am a personality.  And, I am also a body.  

I occupy space, therefore, I am.

As sad as it is, this is a new insight.  Or should I say a clearer insight.  I've not said anything I haven't thought before.  But, this morning, it just seems more real.  And scarier.

I am fat. And I don't want to be.

If I can keep hold of that fact, maybe, just maybe, I can begin doing something about it.