I think it is amazing how my perception of my body can change so much over the course of a week…heck, over the course of the day. Most days, I’m having what I like to refer to as either a “fat day” or a “skinny day”. There is really no way of predicting whether a day will turn out to be a “fat day” or a “skinny day”, but I do know that I am getting tired of my bipolar attitudes towards my body. During this process, I am not only trying to lose weight and build a healthy lifestyle from the ground up, but I am also trying to learn to love and respect my body as well. But the road to learning to accept and love your body can be a long and hard one, just as hard as exercising and eating right can be sometimes. The thing is, I’ve always been a chubby kid. I’ve also always been self-conscious about it. In high school, I got really tired of feeling bad about myself. I also got upset about not having a boyfriend, feeling the weight might have something to do with it. So, I lost 2o pounds through a change of diet and exercise. I felt pretty good about this, as lots of people were giving me compliments. But, I still felt my body needed some work. Unfortunately, my body never got that extra work as going off to college was not a positive experience for my new slim figure. In fact, I gained 50 pounds while I was in college, between being stressed, homesick, and depressed. But something happened when I got up to my highest weight: I learned to accept my body. It certainly didn’t hurt that my body tends to distribute weight in such a way that I didn’t ever really look like I weighed as much as the scale said I did. I started to see myself as sexy at 200 pounds. I bought some low cut tops from Lane Bryant and walked with a little more confidence. Ironically, it was at this highest weight that I started seeing my first boyfriend (and last – he’s my fiance now). Although I was happy at this weight and was really enjoying having boobs for the first time in my life, I was starting to realize that I was really heading down a bad path living the way I was. So, I decided to get healthy and although I’m glad I did, this process has seemed to have brought back some of my insecurity issues. You know something is up when you start wearing the same t-shirt all of the time. I have a Coca-Cola shirt from Wal-mart that I wear all of the time. Why? Because it makes me look thin, of course! The way my clothes fit is a big thing for me and sometimes, I end up changing out of outfits I really like because I don’t like the way they look on me that particular day. I just have some lumps and bumps in some really awkward places that can make it hard for me to find flattering clothes. I think part of my problem is I have been looking at myself in a different way since I started this wellness plan. I have been working hard (I feel) so I look for results and I just don’t see them yet, which can get really frustrating after a while. I know my body will start to change very slowly, like the time I started losing weight in high school and I started seeing results in my fingers before anything else. It just gets me quite frustrated and upset sometimes. As a daily affirmation for myself, I like to look at my body in the mirror just before I get in the shower and think about all of the positive ways it has changed (I have lost 22 pounds so far) and all of the ways it will change if I stick to this plan. While this isn’t a miracle cure, it certainly helps a little. I hope that I will see my attitude start to come around even more in the near future. It can be a long road, but I am willing to travel it until I find what I am looking for.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment