Today I was thinking about my journey. How I got to be this former fat chick who has some serious body issues that I struggle every day to get past, and I thought maybe it would be therapeutic to tell my story. Maybe it wont help me, but maybe somewhere out there it will help someone who is just beginning their journey.
I have had issues with my weight for as long as I can remember. I remember thinking about how fat I was in grade school. Every summer, I would vow to lose weight. I would vow to myself that I would only eat healthy foods and I would go back to school being super skinny. It never happened. I lived in an area that was not overweight. In fact, that area is still much leaner than the rest of the U.S. I cannot remember anyone telling me straight out that I was fat, but I knew I was. Looking at my pictures from that time in my life, I really was not horribly overweight, so it was all in my head. Freshman year in high school is when I started packing on the pounds. I lived with my dad and he provided endless supplies of pop and junk food. Prior to this time, my mom had limited those types of foods in our house. So when I moved to my dad's house and was allowed to have those foods, I went crazy. I remember my first yo-yo like it was yesterday. I was a junior in high school and gas in my car was more important to me than eating. So, I ate one $1.00 Burger King Chicken Sandwich each day, that was it. Suddenly, I noticed I was losing a lot of weight. My pants were falling off. I could not believe it. When I did start eating again, the weight packed on faster than it fell off. The scale started going up, and then I started working at a pizza joint. For years, most of my meals were pizza or breadsticks. On my days off, I would branch out and eat at other restaurants, but never cooked at home or ate vegetables (unless it was a potato, I love potatoes!). At 19, I would eat pizza once a day and then eat Jack In The Box at about 2am when I was coming home from work every. night. I would even bring pizza home to eat on my days off. I also had a Dr. Pepper habit that I have not even touched on. I bet I was drinking a GALLON of Dr. Pepper each day. It was the only liquid I would drink...
Then, it happened... I got pregnant with my oldest child. At that point I started eating SLIGHTLY better. My meals were still protein, fat, and carb heavy, but I was eating more than pizza and those double burgers with 3 types of cheese with fries and a Dr. Pepper. My weight when I went to the doc for my first prenatal appointment was 193lbs. A few months after delivery I was stoked when I weighed 167lbs, I remember looking at the chart and thinking that I was only classified as 'overweight' and I remember telling myself how I was going to get to a healthy weight. Yeah. Right. over the next 4 years I had two more children. I was pretty consistent at 200lbs which is where I maintained for many years.
When I was "done" having kids (or so I thought) I decided I was tired of being fat. This is where the yo-yo dieting got bad. I tried Atkins, lost a bunch of weight and gained it back. South Beach, lost a little weight and gained it back. I tried Isagenix, lost a little weight and gained it back. I remember wanting to try the OTC diet pills that made you shart yourself, but I could not afford them. I even tried to starve myself. I was looking for the next trend, the next answer. Every day I would scour the internet for the next craze that would make me skinny. I even joined a gym and hired a personal trainer. Never did I lose more than 20lbs. So I floated at that 200lbs mark. I wanted the quick answer. I wanted to wake up every day and be 5lbs lighter than the day before. It did not work that way so I gave up, each diet, one by one. When I finally decided I was never going to lose weight I told myself how 'confident' I was in myself. I tried to tell everyone that I was sexy and I loved to eat more than I cared about my weight. I told myself that I was a HEALTHY weight for my body type and that I was just as active as all of the thinner people.... Lies..... I hated myself, I could not run a mile to save my life, I was fat. I knew it. The world knew it. I was in denial.
This is where my story changes. My 10 year old daughter, my mini-me, is starting to have the same struggles. She has always been a bigger girl. Even when she was a baby she was larger than the normal baby. I hear her talk about how fat she is, and how she is not happy with her weight. I then watched her eat an entire bag of chips out of boredom, more than once. I was in denial for many years thinking that she was just a 'big girl' (read: not fat, but big boned). When she hit 143lbs, at 10, I decided we needed to change. We met with a dietician and talked about healthy food choices. We started buying fruits and veggies, and left the chips and the pop at the store. That is where my story started. My daughter goes in for her 11 year old well check in a few weeks, and I am hoping that she is at the very minimum maintaining her weight. I have NEVER made this known to her, but the reason I lost weight was trying to help her. I do not want my daughter to follow in my yo-yo diet footsteps. I want her to be healthy and happy with herself. We have always approached it by saying that we want to make sure she has all the nutrients needed for her big life change coming soon, but in the end, I did not want her to hate herself. I do not want my daughter to have FFGS, ever.
So there is my story in all of its glory. I hope you enjoyed the read. I have many ideas for great blogs, but for the last couple of weeks I have been crazy busy. My daughter and I are training for our very first 5K! I am super excited. I hope everyone reading this has a wonderful day and I hope it is not another week before I see you again!
-Just Me
