Today marks day eight! Well, let me take it back a few steps, this started way long ago, but I will start at this past Christmas.
For Christmas, my whole immediate family returned to our childhood home. All six of my siblings, four of my in-laws, five of my nieces and nephews, one pop, and two parents. And a Nick. The days were stuffed with insanity and eating and trying not to ruin Santa and when it came time, we all had to gather belongings and pack to make our respective flights home. In order to make sure bags would make plane weight limits, I volunteered [read: was forced] to step on the scale and hold bags so that we could subtract my weight and see how much the luggage weighed. “Why didn’t you just put the bag on the scale?” you may ask. Stop asking questions and just read, ok? OK.
Guess what my weight was, just guess. I don’t want to tell you, because I almost died of embarrassment. I weighed 168lbs. Gag. I have never been so heavy and known about it, I just avoid mirrors and scales and anything that will sag under my weight when I am going through fat phases. I wanted to cry, and I got so angry at myself. It may have looked like I was blushing, but underneath those rosy cheeks was pure, bridled rage. “How the f*** could I f***ing do this to myself, you fat c***?! Put down the mother****ing cookies, and chips… and lasagna!”
I held it in all through the night and some of the next morning, obsessing over the fact that I was ruining my body. I made it onto my flight, sat through the onboarding seminar, silently waited for the plane to take off and then let the steamy tears roll down my chubby cheeks until I made it home. This is going to change.
In comes New Year’s Resolution: Lose 35lbs. It was a big ask, and I was prepared… I thought. Moran and I started a KETO diet, and I began elliptical workouts everyday. It was working? Not really sure if it was working or not, but my delusional, food deprived mind saw someone thinner in the mirror. Throughout all of the first two months, I hated and bullied myself into working out and not eating and getting mad at myself for binge eating and not loosing a pound. It wasn’t working. I fell into depression. I looked at skinny girls on instagram, I got sadder, I ate a cupcake, I got fatter.
If you have yet to catch on, I am a little cynical and a lot sarcastic. I read all these pinterest articles and instagram posts of skinny people telling me that they ‘fell in love with themselves and they are happy when they look in the mirror’ and they are so proud of what they have done, and again, I want to gag. “Sure Honey, keep patting yourself on the back, that bruise back there is from great sex, not your constant self applause.”
I don’t really know what started it, maybe it was a lack of sleep, or maybe it was an actual result of self reflection (#deep), but I came to this realization: they may be annoying, but they have what I want, so drop the holier-than-thou act, and listen to what they have to say.
I re-evaluated what I was doing- my diet, quite honestly, sucked. I deprived myself of food for most of the time, and then when I could eat, it was food that was heavy in fats. I get scientifically how KETO is supposed to work, but in reality, I felt gross and I had pimples. I also would binge. Hard. I was sneaking food from Moran, pop-tarts, hostess cakes, anything that a vending machine had to offer. I have never eaten that way in my life. I ate poorly, but it was mainly because I was portioning food wrong, not eating actual crap. Binge eating made me feel guilty, and I felt that KETO was not helping foster a positive relationship with food, and therefore, wasn’t sustainable. Enter, thank the lord, carbs.
I’ve stopped eating KETO. I am back to eating salads, veggies, chicken, yogurt, and fruit. And chocolate- I am allowed 3 Hershey Kisses a day (dark). I feel sooo much better and my skin has cleared, and amazingly enough- in two weeks of eating non-keto, I dropped 2 sizes! Not “I think I look better” two sizes, no, I ordered new jeans (always order the same pair) in my normal size, and they were so large I had to return them and g0t pants two sizes smaller- a six!
Motivated to move forward and keep loosing, I changed my workout- I upped the intensity and switched from Elliptical to the Insanity videos- I know, if you have tried them, you probably think I am suicidal. I am not- just a masochist. Funnily enough, a lot of the exercises in the videos are named after suicide though! (suicide jumps, suicide squats, just plain old suicides). I started in my apartment, but having the neighbors watch me from their window got old quick, so I moved to my building’s gym. Its crappy, but it gets the job done. The gym has a mirror, which at first I avoided looking in like the plague, but now, thanks to the instagram models, I look in it and find parts of my body that I like and appreciate, I like my neck, my tattoos, my legs and some of my shoulder. I can see that my body will be compact and cute as I trim and tone it. One day, I will look like a wonderfully shaped chicken tender, where as now I am just a nugget. Honestly, what more could I want?
Even better, now I am able to look in the mirror, and I can check my form while working out! I don’t just zoom in NCIS style on fat rolls. I am working out better because I am improving my self image, who would have thought! If there is in fact, anyone out there who is reading this, and has felt the same way I have, just know, our attitude isn’t getting us anywhere! Drop the act, and join ’em!
Odd Shaped Baggage this Way 