Losing but Gaining!!

I’ve never been that big. When I started High School I wore a size 12/14 and I stayed that size ‘til I was married. It was big enough to make me feel self-conscious though, and to wish I was as thin as some of the other girls.

Then, after I got married (at the tender age of 19) I did something I swore wouldn’t happen to me; I gained weight. I guess it was the freedom of doing my own grocery shopping, and getting to buy all my favorite foods. It happened without me knowing, but the pounds kept creeping on, one by one. By the time we were married 2-3 years, I had gained THIRTY pounds!! Thirty! I had been purposefully avoiding scales, but when I got pregnant with my daughter, there was no avoiding them anymore. I felt gigantic. I thought I was “fat” before I got married, and here I was THIRTY pounds heavier! More times than I can count I stood in front of a mirror in my undies, thinking and sometimes whispering aloud words like “fat” and “disgusting”. I knew it wasn’t healthy thinking those things about myself, but I couldn’t help it. I really, really hated how fat I was.

This affected my self-esteem in ways I wasn’t even aware of. I was overly emotional at times and irrationally jealous when my husband had any kind of contact with another woman. I was sure that he thought the majority of the female population was thinner than me, therefore making them more attractive. This led to unnecessary arguments between us.

I had good times and bad. Times that I actually felt attractive, but they wouldn’t usually last long. I’d catch a glimpse of my reflection, or see a picture of myself and my self-esteem would plummet back down. Pregnancy was good for me, self-confidence wise. I wasn’t sick at all and I finally felt that I was “allowed” to be big. I never truly admitted to myself that this was a major reason of me loving pregnancy, until my husband pointed it out one time. I wasn’t happy that he said it, but it was the truth.

My husband was very aware of my insecurities due to my weight. He would try to make me feel better, and encourage me to do something about it. I made feeble attempts here and there, but no diet ever lasted long.  I wanted so badly to lose weight, but it just looked so overwhelming to even start. I knew I had so much to lose, and it just seemed like so much work. I hated watching weight-loss shows on TV, or even hearing real-life success stories, just because I was so stinkin’ jealous.

Finally, finally I got the kick start I needed when I had my 2^nd child. I didn’t gain much weight with either of my pregnancies (right around 12 lbs both times) and breast-feeding works wonders for me! I lost 25 lbs in the first few weeks of my son’s life. Exclusively breast-feeding him for 6 months kept the weight off, but I wanted to do more. One day, a friend of mine (who also had a new baby) and I decided we were going to do something about our weights. We came up with the plan to send each other Face Book messages every day listing what we ate that day, and what we did for exercise (we were to exercise 5 days a week). Then, once a week we weighed-in.

 This apparently was the “magic potion” for us, because we both began to lose weight immediately. I dropped 7 pounds in the first 2 weeks. Slowly but surely, over the next couple weeks, then months, the weight kept coming off. We continued to track everything we ate and slowly began increasing the intensity of our workouts and kept this up for 8 months. In those 8 months I managed to lose right around 44 pounds (my friend lost a little over 30)! Add that to the 25 I had lost beforehand, and I’ve lost a grand total of 69 pounds! I went from a size 16 to an 8!

 It’s still really unbelievable to me and sometimes I hardly recognize myself. I feel so good though. And my self-esteem has improved tremendously! I’m “thin” now! For the first time in my life I like the way I look, and that alone is worth all the hard, hard work it took to get there!

My ultimate thanks does go to the Lord for giving me the strength and will-power to do this. Its hard, I’ll never deny that, but the pain is worth it. And as cliche as it is, and as much as I didn’t like hearing this before, it’s true “If I can do this, anybody can”!