The words of Mary Kay Andrews…

Time for an announcement. I’ve gone and reinvented myself. Again. But this time around, the new version of me doesn’t have a new pen name, and I haven’t changed careers or genres. What I have done is lose more than 55 pounds over the past seven months or so.

I wasn’t always overweight. I was a skinny little punk of a kid with severe asthma. When I got married at the age of 22, I wore a cut-down size eight wedding gown. But then that carb-fueled slippery slide to the fat side began.

Although I married a sports-loving jock, I myself am not only not athletic, I am acutely, completely uncoordinated. For years, I swore I couldn’t work out because my own sweat gave me a rash. How lame is that? Also? I’m a writer. For cryin’ out loud, I’m supposed to sit on my butt all day!

And then there was my love of food, cooking and entertaining. I was raised to believe that a woman who loved her family fed her family. And if you really loved your family, you’d make and serve desserts. Lots of desserts. And I sure did love ’em — and feed ’em. I fed them — and me — so well, that I became obese. Such an ugly word, obese.

In the lexicon of ugly words, obese ranks right up there with squat, fetid and puce.

Mary Kay Andrews has had enough. She decided that she didn’t want to look the way she did…any longer.

The words above were lifted from her HuffPost blog on the subject.

Mary Kay is so far winning the battle, a reinvention so much more personal and crueler than a career change; she is changing the way she presents herself to the world.

Her reinvention is creating a new facade, compliments from family and friends and a feeling of satisfaction. She can see the results in the mirror.

She didn’t mention something in her post that I thought she ought to discuss more in-depth: her brain.

Even though we can modify or even drastically reinvent our physical appearance, our brains can play tricks on us.

Think fat girl brain on a slender body.

Think self-involvement (everyone wants to hear our story-how we did it).

Think past insecurities not erased.

When the body changes, the brain can make us actually less fabulous to the world around us.

Think jealous friends.

Think unimpressed neighbors and co-workers.

Think past insecurities not erased.

I love that Mary Kay is winning the battle of the bulge. I hope and pray Mary Kay remembers she’s reinventing body and soul – she’ll be on her way to a wonderful transformation soon.

John Scott is the National Online Learning Coordinator and a media history instructor at the School of Multimedia Communications, Academy of Art University, San Francisco. He also counsels clients and groups on the art of reinvention.

His debut book Broken Glass and Barbed Wire will be released soon.

Follow John on Twitter @johnscottsf.