On Accepting Change

Lately I've been having a really difficult time looking at myself in the mirror. Everyone else is noticing all of these changes in my body and here I am, staring at myself and I see nothing. It's so draining to not feel at peace with your body. Every day is a struggle for me to follow the rules I have put in place for myself. Eat this, not that. Run, now walk. Pick up a heavier set of weights. I feel exhausted. I feel like people are disappointed in my lack of enthusiasm. It's difficult for me to truly articulate the frustration I've been feeling lately. I can't discredit the amount of work I've put into helping myself become healthier. I can't argue the number slowly changing on the scale. However, I've noticed that while for the most part I'm in a great mood, the other part of me is one hard swallow away from crying my eyes out. I'm tired, I'm angry, I'm frustrated. I know nothing comes easy, I know that I need suck it up and be happy with my progress. Somedays though, I want to be upset that I'm not noticing a change in the way my body looks. Somedays, I want to sit in my bed and not work out. It's been a long, difficult road up until this point and most days I do a great job of putting on my gym clothes and hitting the pavement. I want to learn to not expect change over night. I need to be more patient. I need to accept that I am changing, maybe not on the outside but on the inside. I need to embrace my schedule and menu and know that this is one step closer to being in control of my own life. I will continue to eat this, not that; run, now walk; and pick up a heavier set of weights. I will continue to do so because I know my body can.

But for now, can I just sit here and have a good cry?

 Sometimes we all have lows, it's how we handle the lows that matters. What do you do when you feel burnt out?

The Beginning of My Journey: Part One

I think it's important for me to write about my journey to finally deciding to take my health seriously and creating this blog. Please bear with me as I want to include as much information as possible. I want to this be a therapeutic post - write out all my demons in a sense. 

I grew up in a military family. We didn't travel very much but I was never in one place for more than three years. The majority of my childhood was spent in Guam. This is me as a toddler. Aside from looking very cute, I was pretty petite. I was active and I was always playing outside with my friends. I would bike to my friend's house... and also bike to parts of the military housing that I wasn't allowed to be. I always made it home for curfew (street lights came on). On the outside everything was perfect - but my family wasn't. My parents argued all the time and I felt really sad all the time. I would hear them argue at night and I would imagine the worse. 

When I was in kindergarden/first grade, I started to put on weight. I remember being on the swings with my friend and one of the boys in my class was pushing us and he mentioned that I was "heavy." That was the first time I became aware of my weight. When I moved back to San Diego, my family mentioned my weight as well. My uncle mentioned, sort of in passing, "Wow, you got big!" I was young, I was growing... right? Well, the weight issue started to set in when my dad started talking about my weight. He said I was fat and that I didn't do anything. He put me in basketball and I never moved as fast as the other kids. I had a complex about the way my body looked when it was in motion - no thanks to my dad's coworker who saw me running down the hall at his office and said there was an earthquake! I was young so it took awhile to hit me as, "he just made fun of me." 

My friends were always smaller than me. I always felt like the odd person out even though my friends were always really great to me. I didn't really understand why my body looked the way it did. I felt out of place and uncomfortable being myself. I kind of turned into a bully and I would be mean to anyone who I feared was going to be mean to me. I was also dealing with the turmoil of a family that seemed to be falling apart at the seams. My parents fought all the time, I was constantly scared and wished I had a different life. I guess I thought everything would be better if my parents got along, if there wasn't the stress of being a military family, and if my parents weren't always busy working. I remember spending one summer (maybe 4th or 5th grade) in the house. My mom would leave a to-do list and my sister and I would make ourselves lunch (usually a microwaveable pizza or... two). I feel like I never left the house - and looking back on it, I probably didn't.

My insecurity began when I was really young. It feels strange to know that I grew up always analyzing myself. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed my childhood. I had great friends and my parents were always very loving to me. They did whatever they could do to make sure I was comfortable. From a young age, I didn't have a good grasp on "healthy" food. As I grew... it didn't get better. I'll leave that for another post though. 

When did you begin to notice your weight? Did it ever stop you from being your true self? 

Until next time, keep smiling.