I did not make it to kickboxing yesterday. I haven’t made it to
kickboxing yet! I really, REALLY
want to go. Started boot camp classes,
stopped after a couple of weeks.
Even though I have reasons for doing so and am planning on returning
soon, it just enforces my own warped belief system that I will forever and
always be stuck in this body that I HATE.
I don’t really remember when I started hating the way I look. It had to have been when I was very
young. Up until I had my first
child at 24, most would say that I had a “dream” body, but I never saw it that
way. My boobs and hips were too
big, my legs too skinny, my ass too wide.
What this translated to were measurements of 34”, 24”, 36”…. Meow!
Right? I hated it. The attention I received from men made me hate myself more,
yet the power I had over them, was like a drug. Talk about a love/hate relationship! Maintaining that level
of va va voom was not as easy once I had my first baby. The eating disorder
that I had sustained since my junior high cheerleading days was not going to be
easy to keep going once I got pregnant.
Mainly because I wanted to eat, and I wanted to eat a lot! Throwing up
was no longer something within my control because the baby was making the
decisions for me now. Getting pregnant not only forced me to put my drinking
into check, it diminished my ability to purge and it somehow curbed my desire to cut. Something about mutilating myself with a precious baby
inside of me seemed vile during this time. Yet, I had to do something to deal with the emotional pain
that I had kept at bay all of these years. So, eating became my drug of choice. For the past 17 years,
I have had a rollercoaster relationship with food and with that came the yo-yo
cycle of my weight. I have fluctuated between 135 and 195 lbs for over 15
years. Yes, you heard me, “195”! Sadly I’m not too far below that number now
AND if you knew my BMI, well… anyhoo…
So, here I am, 41 years old and I
still hate my body, hate that I don’t have energy to really do the work it
would take to get this weight off, hate how unhealthy I feel, hate that my
clothes don’t fit, hate that I can’t BUY the clothes that I want, hate how it
makes me feel less intimate with my husband and finally I hate that I can’t
feel good about myself and my body at any weight. Isn’t that what we try and teach our daughters, advocate to
other women?, “Embrace your curves! Love yourself at any weight! Be proud of who
you are and how God made you!”.
So, as with this entire journey, I will take it one day at a time. I will work on eating healthier, but not
lose my taste for the enjoyment of food.
I will find an exercise plan that works and stick with it. I will lose 30 lbs by my birthday, OK
40 AND if I can’t do any of that, at the very least I. Will. Embrace. My.
Curves! I can’t truthfully say that I believe any of that, but I can say that
in the meantime, I am walking the dog today. Yes, I will walk the dog and if that is all I can accomplish
than that will be enough. I will try my hardest to not beat myself up; I will
keep telling myself that I am beautiful no matter what my size and I will forgive myself for each stumble.
Besides, my husband still calls me
sexy and in this case when he says it, I almost believe it.