Body Image

With all the changes I have made in the past six to eight weeks, one of them was unconscious at first.  I hadn't been feeling very well for about a week.  After the week, I made a conscious decision to think more about when I was eating.  I stopped eating late at night.  If I get hungry I might eat a piece of fruit.

I didn't stop eating food I liked, I just stopped eating it in excess at night.  For the past five weeks, my body has been trained that it isn't hungry at night.  I do eat in the day time.  I also gave up tea at work which I used massive amounts of cream in, to make it taste good.  Once I gave this up, I really started to feel better; I only drink water or herbal tea at work.

The reason I wanted to blog about this is that my whole life has been about how I have felt about my body.  I was in a house fire when I was 15 months old and severely burned.  I was extremely conscious of this when I was a teenager; I always thought this would keep someone from loving me.  Also my ex step mother Ruth was on my case all the time about my weight, she would tell me I was fat often.  One incident that stands out was when I was 12 years old, I weighed 107 pounds and I was 5'6", she grabbed my stomach and said look how fat you are?

All I can say is wow and unbelievable; I was NOT fat, even when I was in grade 10 and I weighed 123 pounds, I was NOT fat.  I had an awesome figure, I was curvy.  It was hard to realize that when I was that young and then having someone destroy your self image was extremely difficult to get over.  I ended up proving her right.

I no longer have those words in my head, I might be a heavy girl but I am a beautiful, curvy and sexy woman.  I have lost 22 pounds in the past five weeks by just changing some behaviors.  I am also going to start exercising, I have a gym pass at work and I have used excuse after excuse to not use it.  Basically I allowed people's words to resonate in my head.

My new motto is to listen to only people who love me and think that I am wonderful and amazing.  There are many people like this in my life, David showed me that, I am incredibly grateful that he showed up in my life when he did, I was on a long dark path, he lightened the path back to where I needed to be.  He showed me in words and behavior that I was beautiful and worth it.  He believed in me and showed me that I could believe in myself too.

So, I am down 22 pounds and I am more than determined to keep going.  I had to learn to love myself so that I am to be able to move forward on this journey of weight loss.  It might take me a couple of years but I don't care, I am committed to me.