Lately, I have been making a lot of new friends. I love it.
That being said, this might be the first blog of mine you’re
reading. Welcome. Intermittently over the past 11 years, I’ve
chronicled what I have considered significant moments in my life. I've also mixed in some poetry and general opinions
about the world in which I perceive.
These past 11 years have been ripe with experiences, lessons, and
ultimately growth. Today, I am staring
down the final year of my thirties and feeling a lot of satisfaction with what
lies ahead.
Purpose drives the majority of the decisions I make. It might have been Oprah who said something
brilliant about living a life on purpose and then you’ll have fewer
accidents. Perhaps it’s the wisdom of
living so many years on accident, that this mantra has garnered more
impact. The past five years have shown
the benefits of living on purpose and shown the repercussions of flippant
choices. It’s not lost on me in this
phase of my evolution.
One specific thing I’ve been doing on purpose is focusing my
attention on my self-worth, self-esteem, and overall self-image. It’s not a rarity to admit that I’ve been
significantly tormented by the opinions of others when it comes to those
definitions that truly shouldn’t waver based on anyone’s perception of me. Alas, being a supremely self-conscious
person, a chronic over thinker and people pleaser, I have placed my value
outside of myself. It’s been a fairly
enlightening education discovering my vulnerability to other’s projection.
Five years ago, my dad died and I had my last child. When I delivered him, via emergent C-section,
I was underweight for the stage of pregnancy I was in. The stress levels I was experiencing were
severely impacting the health of the pregnancy.
Within mere weeks of the belly birth, I didn’t look like I had even been
pregnant. Nearly a year after he was
born, my body reflected a much different state.
The battles with grief and depression had set in and I gained weight
like it didn’t matter. I will NEVER
forget the first time I saw a number on a scale that I had never seen in all of
my 35 years.
The terror that shook my psyche to see 194 pounds staring
back at me from between my feet was nothing short of sobering. That was it.
Something had to change. I had a
few ideas about what I needed to do, but truth was, I didn’t realize how much
of my mental state had contributed to the pounds I carried. There’s certainly some kind of metaphor
between those words.
I immediately cut soda out.
I started counting macros and watching every single calorie I
consumed. There was borderline obsession
with what I ate and drank. About a month
after the commitment to change, I had lost about 15 pounds. But then that damned plateau hit with all the
power of a Mack truck. Now, at this
point I had not yet started working out.
I knew that the bulk of the results were going to come from eating
right.
Because I’m such a nerd, I researched my fat ass off trying
to figure out what I could do better, different, anything to start seeing more
results. Good Lord, there is a lot of
biological chemistry involved with successful weight loss and maintaining the
loss. For shits and giggles, I took a
quiz about my body type and eating habits.
I was Internet diagnosed with a food phobia. Um.
Alright. I was under eating by
about 700 calories a day. Just the idea
of increasing my intake that much gave me anxiety. That anxiety proved the validity of the test
results.
After another couple of months of adjusting and readjusting,
I found my happy balance. I also fell in
deep love with free weights. Within
about six months, I had lost nearly 40 pounds.
The size 14 jeans I was sporting were no longer fitting. I was happily in a size 10/12 and feeling
great.
I was able to keep the weight off. The alchemy (because let’s face it, staying
on a diet wagon sucks) of balance began to manifest in spades. Cheat days were less and less enjoyable. My body let me know, violently, when I ate
trash. Those cheat days took different
approaches. Instead of the double
quarter pounder with cheese, I found the love for pistachios by the quarter
pound. The shift towards healthier stuff
seemingly took over. It was weird, but cool!
Now, here’s the really interesting part. Simultaneously with my diet and exercise
routine, I was finding some inner peace.
The balance wasn’t only shifting with my lifestyle; it was shifting
emotionally and spiritually. So, when
people would ask me what I was doing to lose the weight, I would always answer
with being genuinely happy. It was a
fact. I was at the beginning of what I
can now see as the pendulum swing towards a trajectory I’m so proud to say has
continued to thrust forward.
The past five years have not been without some challenge and
pain. My weight reflected it. I gained back a few pounds. Some blows to the ego hit my waistline in
addition to my inner peace. I recognized
it a lot faster this time. It didn’t
take me long to hitch up the wagon again and climb on. This past winter, I started hitting the power
lifting again and refocused my purpose.
My purpose transitioned with even more fervent
introspection, I’ll be honest, I sort of freaked out. Like a switch had been flipped, suddenly I
saw the rest of a dimly lit room that was Me.
Today, I found myself looking through old pictures and seeing the way my
body reflected my emotional phases and evolutions. For fun, I used one of those apps that
collage images into one. One side was me
five years ago and the other was taken today.
Of course I had seen the picture several times. It was the picture that shook me
(collaboratively with seeing the scale tip far too close to 200 pounds). However, seeing it next to the image from
today, it was so clear to me how valid my purposes are in my current position.
Like lightening, the journey I have been on spliced through
my mind. All the ups and downs flipped
through me like watching a slide show on hyper speed. The intention I try to foster and mature is what
I believe to be correct for the life I’ve built and been given. The smile I wear, I’ve earned. The glow I shine, I made. The joy I feel, I postured myself to
receive. At this moment, I weigh 155
pound and wear a size 6/8 and feel lighter than I can even describe. All I can do is hope and persevere that the
purpose I feel so much conviction to follow, continues to bear, at the very
least as much joy as I feel right now.
