Ok, gotta do some real talk about how I feel about my weight. I just need an outlet to vent about it and I know some girls reading this will understand where I’m coming from. This isn’t exactly fashion related but this does affect the fashion/beauty aspect of my life.
I’ve had issues with my weight my whole adult life. Actually I’ve had issues since I was a young teenager but it didn’t get bad until I was 23. When I turned 23 I was 120 pounds, which was great for my height. I wasn’t working out but I thought I looked good. Fast forward 6 months after starting a new relationship and going on birth control for the first time, and I had gained 40 pounds. I was unhappy and depressed. I was called overweight and gross by a family member. I was embarrassed and ashamed. Eventually I had enough of how I looked and felt and I started eating super strict and going to the gym 5 times a week for 90 minutes a day doing cardio and weights. 8 months later I got myself down to 115 pounds. I was so skinny and I loved it. But 115 was not easy to maintain and I flip flopped between 120-130 for the next 5 years and I was fine with that because anything between 120-130 is easy to maintain for me as long as I keep working out and just eat everything in moderation.
In 2010, after graduating teachers college, I decided to finally go on a vacation. I decided to go to Portugal with my parents and boyfriend at the time. I also decided to get even thinner for the beach so I started a strict 3 month diet and did P90X religiously every day. I reached also the perfect body for myself in my eyes and was super happy and excited. Again staying that fit was not realistic for me to stay that way, which I expected. It was just more for that trip. Before I left for Portugal, I ended my relationship with my long term boyfriend. When I came back, I started a new relationship with someone else. It was stupid to start a new relationship so quickly but I did it anyway. Maybe it was my way of coping with ending a 6 year relationship with my best friend or maybe I just didn’t want to be lonely. Whatever the case is, I jumped in too quickly with someone who was completely wrong for me. It was a poisonous relationship that caused my anxiety to flare up and I became severely depressed. Because of this, I ballooned back up by 45 pounds. Again, I was left feeling ugly and worthless and stayed in the relationship way longer than I should have.
After a little over a year of dealing with the emotional abuse, I ended the relationship and started to get back on track with my mental and physical health. Within 9 months I had gotten back down to 130 pounds. I was working out 7 days a week at 2 hours a day but I couldn’t get back to 120. I was ok with that. I was happy with 130. I was also doing more weight training so I knew some of that extra weight was more muscle. I then met my current husband and I gained a little then lost a little back and forth but was always pretty consistent at 130.
Fast forward to getting pregnant in August of 2014. I always told myself I was going to be a fit mom. I was going to work out 4 times a week and not use my pregnancy as an excuse to eat like a maniac. I had no idea what I was getting into. I was exhausted. Working out was so difficult. What used to be an easy one hour on the eliptical, turned into 20 excruciating minutes. All I wanted to do was sleep. And all I wanted to do was eat. I was craving all the things I normally wouldn’t eat. I wanted Cola all the time. I wanted to eat burgers and fries every day. I craved Mac and Cheese and all the bread in the world. I wasn’t prepared for everything that started happening is my head and body. By the end of it, I was 70 pounds heavier, with high pressure and everything was swollen. I kept telling myself I could easily lose the weight because in the past, it’s taken me no time at all to lose the weight. Boy was I wrong. I have only lost 40 pounds in a year. It was 44 pounds but I recently gained those 4 pounds back by being an idiot. I’m so miserable about it. I have loads of reasons to be motivated: my health, my loads of size medium clothes that don’t fit, the fact that I hate looking in the mirror. But because it’s taken so long and my lack of food will power these days, I just haven’t been able to lose the last 30. At first I thought that I would lose the weight faster after breastfeeding because I can cut down calories, and it was working for a while, but then I went back on BC pills and I started getting really hungry again.
I’m at the breaking point. I’m depressed over how I look again. It doesn’t help that even though I’ve been this weight before, certain things that used to fit still don’t because the fat has shifted. My arms have always been large but now they are huge. Because of this, I don’t want to show my arms at all. I’d rather be boiling hot in a cardigan or long sleeved shirt than show my arms in public. I look at other girls who are larger than me or the same size as me and think they look great, but then I look at myself and I’m disgusted with what I see. This is why I get upset when people say that average size girls shouldn’t complain about being a little overweight in front of their larger friends. Why is my pain or view of myself less valid than someone else just because I’m smaller? I still have the same worries and negative thoughts as anyone else who is either over weight or under weight. Just because I think I’m fat doesn’t mean that I think anyone else looks that way. It just means that I have a negative view of myself and I’m unhappy with what I see in the mirror.
Today I’ve made the decision that I need to really to start taking care of myself again, physically and emotionally. Eating better and working out makes me feel good so I need to get back to that again. So I’m cutting down calories again and not just for a few weeks. I have to get back to a normal food routine like I used to have where I’m healthy most of the time and can indulge in some bad stuff once in a while. I have to cut alcohol down to a minimum and I need to be more consistent with my workouts. It’s going to be hard to find time to work out as much as I want but it’s important that I really make myself a priority and get fit. So to help keep up the motivation, I will use this blog as a way to update my progress to you all as well at the end of every month so hopefully I have some positive news on June 30th.
Lovely Biscuits 