I'm not a weight loss professional or a medical professional of any kind. I'm just a person struggling with weight and body image like many men and women. I need an outlet, a place to document my progress where I can get feed back and read others' stories.
My purpose on here is to talk about my achievements and struggles through my weight loss, what works for me, what doesn't work for me, and what could work for you. I want to be a voice for all those chubby girls out there and to tell them they aren't alone. I want to prove to them, and to myself that there is hope for change.
How I gained my weight: Going into college, I weighed 140 pounds and I am 5' 7". I was always thin. I could always wear whatever clothes I wanted, do any activities I wanted, EAT whatever I wanted. Life happened and I ended up on anti-depressants and over the course of the next year, I gained about 30 pounds, which put me up to around 160-170. After seeing after seeing my body change, I was eventually weaned off of antidepressants (only do this under doctor supervision) and I decided to make changes in my life to get over depression drug-free.
My brother introduced me to Eckhart Tolle books and I read A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose (2008) and it changed the way I looked at the world. I began listening to uplifting music, keeping a journal (online and in a private journal), meditation, hiking, and diving into my passion: theatre. I even managed to lose some weight one summer. For another year I struggled with overcoming the depression, I succeeded and relapsed many times. Eventually I found myself in a very healthy relationship with my now fiance, Chris, and became very content and happy with life.
Then mono hit.
Mononucleosis is different for everyone. Doctors told me it could last anywhere from 2 weeks to months. For me, it was a total of about 4 months of symptoms, one of those months being very severe, and an additional few months of recovery and watching my liver health and blood levels. I had to take horse-pill sized steroids for the swelling in my throat go down enough for me to swallow anything. Unfortunately those steroids caused me to gain weight extremely fast; I gained about 15 pounds in a month. By the time the whole mono ordeal was over, I was bloated and barely recognised myself, teetering on 200 pounds.
None of my clothes fit; I had to wear sweat pants the rest of the semester. I even had to cut a shirt off of myself once because my arms got stuck. I felt disgusting and it only got worse.
Where I am today: Mono was over two years ago and now I'm up to 229 pounds. Starting college I was in a junior size 9 or 11 jean, and now I'm in a women's 18. I wore a junior's medium top, now I'm in a women's plus 2XL, sometimes a 1XL depending on the brand. I graduated college a year ago and now I've just been working third-shift retail while i "figure out my life".
Part of that "figuring out" includes losing weight. I need to do it now before I keep gaining and before I have children and a real career to manage. While I am in a happy, healthy relationship, I began to feel stagnant and bored. Chris and I started learning German, and I started to do more theatre in the area....but that's not enough. I want to lose weight. I can't do some activities I used to anymore. I am always a tech person for theatre, but anytime I have to get in front of people or do actor warm ups, I become terrified. Getting ready to go out or go to an event is also nerve wracking and I hate shopping. I've tried weight loss before, but I always failed or quit....this time I needed to do something different, so I decided to create a blog about it like I did for my depression.
I want my life back.
Next blog, I'll talk about my attempts with dieting before and why it did or didn't work and what I'm trying now to change.
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