Hello again, my friends. Yes, i know it's been waaaayyy too long since my last post. To be 100% honest with you, I fell off the health band wagon and went on a junk food rampage for about ...well since my last blog. However, since then, I've done a little soul searching and found something that has truly inspired me. Thus, I am here to share that with you.
My back story is that I grew up with very health conscience parents who did all they could to pave the way to health for me. They showed me, my brother and sisters what dieting did and the results that it could get if we were diligent enough. They also proved how healthy and disease fighting exercising can be. I say the following with the utmost respect: I am grateful for the dieting and health guidelines they gave me, but I think the first thing I needed to know was that I was alright just being me, whatever package I came in.
In high school, I was a competitive dancer. I ate what I wanted, when I wanted and then the calories would burn off when I went to the three hour long practices that happened sometimes three times a week. Duh. Well, when I stopped dancing, that's when I began to take the first few steps into real life. Weight gain happened. I became over critical with myself, forever striving for the perfection I believed would grant me happiness. I mean, it's plastered all over my dear television set, all over the magazines at the dentist, and smeared from heck to breakfast in between. We see size (I wouldn't even call what size they are a size. Our bodies clearly were never meant to look that way) zero and beyond strutting the latest fashions or showing off their fabulous skin in steamy shower commercials and suddenly, all I wanted was to appeal to others the way that those pictures appealed to me. I wanted beauty. I wanted what was only skin deep and I wanted approval from others.
After a few semesters in college, I began to pack on the weight. My dear mother always made us delicious meals and typically I was too lazy saying "Gimme more" than to learn how to cook, so I just didn't. I deemed that the food I had in my pantry wasn't good enough and went out in search of something better, something easier like Subway, Wendy's, McDonalds, and other cheap, easy and "healthy" boxed dinners.
I began searching for the "one" and was devastated when a lot of the boys I liked declined my invitations to like me too. I began to worry more and more about what others thought of me and bent over backwards to please them. In the midst of all of the drama that was my life, I worried and worried and worried some more about the weight I was putting on. I lost some a few months after I stopped attending college, but the results were not permanent. After I met my soul mate and love of my life, things were great...until he had to get back to school and life. So, to drown out the voice of sorrow, loneliness, and boredom in my head, I kept her occupied with cookies, cakes, fast food, and soda. I entertained her with Netflix, Youtube, and Hulu. I lived vicariously through those characters I watched and didn't enjoy the amazing life I had in front of me. Then, disgusted, I'd look in the mirror and wish with all my might that I had someone else's life.
I turned to food because I thought I was fat. I really, truly believed that I was worth punishing, not worth appreciating. Why, you ask. Why was I so willing to punish myself? Because of those extra fifteen, twenty, twenty five and now forty pounds I've put on since high school. I told myself that those pounds made me hideous, that they made me less of a person and as a result, those pounds became a part of me. Each now houses a symbolic scar of the person I thought I would never become or never amount to. It was not until I realized what I was saying to myself that I was able to take those first steps out of the darkness I put myself in and see the light. I am not what I weight. I am not how I look. I am who I am and that's soooo many things that run deeper than skin.
After therapy, much research, and soul searching mingled with prayer, fasting, and many, many tears, I can honestly say that I am leaving that person behind.
The past few months, I've been reading, researching, and scouring the Internet for information. I wanted to learn what food does to me and take myself out of the ignorant bliss I fed myself to cope with my issues. I wanted to stop making excuses and to make a change that was life long.
On the edge of making this blog much too personal, I will share with any one who reads this post that I am beyond terrified to raise children in this society. I hate walking down the halls of schools and seeing the walls littered with vending machines housing poisonous snacks that are void of nutrients. Most of all however, I am afraid that I will be that house for my children. We all know where babies are created-in us! So in my mind, my body is where their health begins. If I want to be at peace when I am pregnant and not constantly have to worry about the health issues I could be handing down to my future kids, I have to act now so that my bad health is not their future health. The first thing that needed to change, was my lack of love of self. The last thing I want is for my little girl to see me hating myself and because she sees her mommy do it, she thinks she needs to do it too.
To me, good foods help me see all the good things about myself. It's like they help me put on my rose colored glasses. There is something inside those vitamin rich, nutrient dense fruits and vegetables that connect me directly with peace with myself. I've been listening extremely hard for the first time to what my body is saying to me. The past couple of weeks (yes, it's only been a couple weeks since my revelation) I have felt better about myself than I have ever felt in my life. I can see the stretch marks and the bubble butt and see beyond them. I can shut the Negatory Nancy (as I call her) up permanently informing her that I am beautiful and that no matter how negative she gets, I am more positive because I am actively pursuing a lifelong dream: my health. But those veggies and fruits are only a stepping stone. The next step, comes from within, not what you put in. How often do we walk in the bathroom and truly smile at our reflection? I can tell you that the old me didn't smile at myself....at all!
On a documentary called Hungry for Change (found on Netflix), Joe Cross, the juicing fanatic from Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead, talks about that negative person in our minds. He says if he knew someone who was as negative to us as that person in our head is, that he would stay as far away from them as possible. "So," he asks, "Why do we let them live in our minds? Why do we permit them to say the things they say?" I know that in my case, it was because of a lack of love.
Now, in the morning and sometimes in the evening, I lean over the counter and
look into my beautiful eyes and I tell myself, "You are
beautiful and I love you unconditionally right now." The first time I said that, I was expecting to feel cheesy or dumb, but I felt great. I felt free of the oppression I'd chained myself to. You see, when you hate yourself, there's always a reason. Mine was weight. I was punishing myself for gaining weight, but by punishing myself, I wasn't making my world right. I was tipping it upside down. Our loving Heavenly Father didn't create us and send us here to live in misery. He sent us to find joy and to find love and happiness. I was abusing myself for years and my outward appearance was proof of that. So, I'm here to give my blog's name a boost and reiterate that you HAVE to LOVE IT if you ever want to lose what you've been carrying around inside, be it sorrow, pain, regret or weight.
This week's challenge, tell yourself you love yourself unconditionally right now every day twice a day. Make eye contact and then smile. Then exhale and let the bitterness of life seep out of you. Don't let your Negatory Nancy or Fireball Throwing Fred enter your thoughts anymore. EVICT THEM! It's about friggin' time they get their own lives! Take back yours and love it to lose it. Peace out y'all! My next blog post (I figured this was too long to add on) I'll be sharing meals that are FANTASTIC and ways I've made over my lifestyle. See you then! Don't forget to leave comments below. If I've inspired you, please inspire me! Also, keep in mind that I'm not a professional and I don't claim to be. I'm new at this so teach me if you can!! Have a great, lovin' yourself day!
