Tales of a Fat Vegetarian

I'm a cultural oddity. I'm a lifelong vegetarian whose parents never set out to raise her that way. Seriously. Everyone in my family eats meat, but for some reason, I just wouldn't eat it when I was a kid. Well, to be honest, my father likes to point out that I used to like bologna...but I'm not even sure that that can really be considered meat and I stopped eating it as soon as I found out that it was made from an animal. I must have been Buddhist in a former life.

Yet I've never been someone you would consider slim. Chubby, plump, big-boned...and yes, even fat. Those are the words that would characterize me.

I think that most people think that vegetarians are by nature thin and healthy. And many are. But I'm here to say that it's not always the reality. There are quite a lot of foods that are both vegetarian and unhealthy and eating an abundance of these foods can indeed make you fat, even if you don't eat meat.

Princess Dresses are not Drop-Waisted

I realized that I was not skinny in first grade. My mom would always dress me in these god-awful drop-waisted dresses that she thought made me look slim. She'd even tell me to suck in my stomach (and, being six years old, the only way could do this was to hold my breath).

Well, one day we had to go buy a dress for my First Communion. Of course, my mom starts looking at all these drop-waisted dresses. But I didn't like the drop-waisted dresses. The regular-waisted dresses were so much prettier and princess-like. I wanted to be a pretty princess and I knew that I couldn't be that in an ugly drop-waisted dress. I fought and I cried. Eventually, the sales lady, bless her heart, talked my mom into getting me the dress that I wanted.

The Curse of My Last Name

My maiden name is Tubbs. Yes, you read that right. A chubby girl whose last name is Tubbs. I couldn't dream this up if I tried.

Now, in high school, I wasn't terribly fat. But like just about any other normal teenager, I was insecure about my weight. And the last name.

I joined the drama club at the same time as another girl named Shannon, so the drama teacher nicknamed me Tubby...because of my last name (so he said. Of course all I could think of is "Why am I so fat?" every time I heard him say my "name".). You're probably thinking this talestory couldn't get worse. Yes it can. The other student with my name happened to be quite tall and skinny, so the teacher started calling her "Stick Woman". Stick woman and Tubby. Fantastic.

All of my girl friends, being modern women, used to debate whether we would take our husband's last names if we ever got married. Or would we hyphenate? There was never any question for me. I would take whatever last name my future husband came with.

Fat Acceptance

Throughout college and in the years after, I started gaining a lot more weight. But it didn't bother me. I was at a point where I knew that true beauty came from the inside and it didn't matter what I looked like on the outside. I thought that fat was just how I was meant to be and there wasn't anything I could do about it. I didn't own a scale and it was fashionable among my friends to wear very loose-fitting handmade clothing, so I never knew just how big I was getting. Even if I did realize it, I wouldn't have cared. I was fat and happy.

I had a doctor that told me I was too heavy and that I needed to lose weight. But he also said that all of my blood tests and other vitals were just fine, so I didn't give it too much thought.

The Dreaded Diagnosis

Finally, when I was 23, a different doctor diagnosed me with Polycyctic Ovarian Syndrom (PCOS). I was devastated. I had some friends with PCOS, so I had done a bit of reading about it. I knew that those with PCOS had a tendency to be overweight and have a difficult time losing weight.

Now, I was OK with my weight, even though it was high, but for some reason the thought that the scale would just keep going up and up really upset me. I had a good cry and then did some more research.

Small Changes and Big Realizations

I read that a lot of women with PCOS had success doing a low carb diet, so I decided to give that a shot. Of course, as a vegetarian, I failed miserably at that, however it did help me to begin changing some eating habits.

I went from drinking a two liter bottle of soda per day to drinking only diet soda, and a lot more water. I ate more vegetables and salads.

I was always under the impression that my diet was "pretty good". After all, when I told people that I was a vegetarian, they'd all exclaim "Wow! You must be so healthy!"

Well, I wasn't.

I began to notice that I had been eating various forms of pizza four times a week. I considered frozen pizza, pizza pockets, and delivery pizza to be different meals. When I wasn't having pizza for dinner, I would eat spaghetti or macaroni and cheese. On the infrequent occasions that I did eat a salad (only when eating out), it would be drenched in ranch dressing. In addition to my unhealthy meals, I would daily eat bags of chips, candy bars, and ice cream.

Needless to say, by just making a few more healthy choices, I started to drop pounds. And the more small changes I'd make, like incorporating exercise, the more weight would come off.

Striving to be Better

I'm not a perfect person. I'm still chubby. I don't eat completely healthy foods 100 percent of the time. But I do try to always make more healthy choices which counterbalances any bad choices that I make. It's been seven years since I started on this journey and I'm light-years ahead of where I used to be. In high school, I couldn't run around the track even once. Now, I regularly jog 5 miles or more!

I tell my story because I know that there are other people out there who are where I used to be. Eating a vegetarian diet can trick you into thinking that you are always making healthy food choices. But that's not always the case. If you are a fat vegetarian, and you're not happy with the way that your body looks, then take note of the foods that you are really eating. Perhaps you too can begin a journey to a healthier you, just by making a few small changes at a time.