Six months ago I hit the lowest weight I have been in my adult life, when 130lbs flashed on the scale my first reaction was excitement. Despite my initial reaction the more I thought about it then more heartbroken I became, when I looked in the mirror I didn't see a attractive body. The body I saw in the mirror was not the body I had wished for, hoped for or expected when I imagined myself at 130lbs. I still saw myself jiggle when I walked, I still had love handles and I still had fat thighs but most of all I was still disgusted with the body I saw in the mirror. I compared myself to other women with my height and weight, they had such beautiful bodies and mine was so lack luster. I know what you are thinking, you should never compare yourself to others but lets face it, we all do it from time to time. I started out my weight loss journey with a vision of what I hoped to make my body look like at my goal weight, when I reached that and saw how far I still had to go I felt like a failure. In my mind I knew my emotions were unjustified, even laughable but they were intense and I couldn't shake them off. As I wallowed in my own self defeat, I slipped.
It started off small, with tiny little indiscretions - a chocolate bar here, a small piece of cake there. Those small indiscretions quickly turned into bigger ones that included pizza, chips and pasta. Everything that was once on my "every-now-and-then" list was all of a sudden "must-eat-now" list. I wont sugar coat the truth, I didn't just eat the foods I had once strayed from, I devoured them. As my eating plummeted downhill so did any minuscule shred of self-esteem I had left. At this point I stopped weighing myself daily, I guess I figured that if I couldn't see the damage on the scale then maybe it didn't exist. I found myself on a "I-see-food-I-eat-it" diet that I hated but didn't have the will power to stop. They don't lie when they say it is a very slippery slope and once I was sliding down the hill, I couldn't put on the breaks. Month after month went by and I kept promising myself I would stop this self destruction but I never did.
When I finally did get the courage up to weigh myself I was shocked at the number gleaming back at my on the scale. In a very short 8 months I had managed to gain back 30lbs. You can imagine my disgust with myself. Sadly, reflecting back on all those months of eating, the weight gain is not a surprise. Recently I stopped and took a long, hard look at myself and the life I was living, I realized that I am not happy living like this. I have realized that my vision of the "perfect body" is not unattainable, or unrealistic for my body type, but it is going to take more work and time then I originally thought. For some reason I wanted to rush things, I wanted it now, not later and when I realized that I could not run myself to the perfect body, I effectively gave up even trying. The saddest part is that I actually liked the feeling of doing something to better myself, I liked the rush I got from running and I enjoyed the way my body felt when I put healthy food in to it.
Today was my last day of treating myself like a garbage can.
I can't continue living like this, I can't continue punishing my body because I have a problem.
I really needed to get that out, Thank you!