Oh my dear friends, this is something I know about in entirely too much detail. From the time we are younger we are given Barbie's with pencil thin waists, large breasts and beautiful waist length hair. We are handed this unrealistic idea of beauty. We are almost set up for failure before we even start our journey.
I was always the girl with the thicker thighs, bigger bottom and comfortably wore a size 13 most of my life. In 2011 I started a very unhealthy weight loss adventure. It all started when I was at my oral surgeons office and they had to take a picture of my face before a procedure I was going to have. I sat staring at my puffy face and didn't recognize the girl that looked back at me in the photograph. I decided that day I was going to change what I looked like. I was very uneducated back then as far as fitness and nutrition go. I went into everything very blindly. I started a bit of a starvation diet coupled with excessive exercise. In 2011 there was an exercise program called "Insanity". This was a 60 minute video with that included a very intense workout routine. Working out at this intensity level and adding in my lack of food was a recipe for disaster. I lived with very low blood sugar and was on the verge of passing out daily. I was addicted to this routine whether it felt good or not. I remember the video not working one day. I was in absolute tears out of the fear of missing a workout. I offered to pay my 12 year old 100 dollars if he could fix it. I still remember how crazed I felt that day. When my family would go on vacation there always had to be some point of the day we had time to exercise. When I was at the beach laying on my belly I would be holding a plank. I was exercising when I should have been enjoying watching my kids or simply being present.
I would eat next to nothing all day and then end my day with an artichoke for dinner and a fat free yogurt for "dessert". Once in a while for a treat I would allow myself 2 hot tamale candies...yes 2. I would ask my kids to let me just smell their food. Once in awhile I would ask them for a bite and then when nobody was looking spit it out in the trash can. I went from a size 12/13 to a size 00. I was rail thin but still didn't see that girl in the mirror. I always saw what I used to look like. I was never thin enough in my eyes. One day I went to visit my mother at her workplace and a coworker asked if I had cancer. She was truly genuine in her concern, I could tell by her worried facial expression. This is when I knew I had to change the way I was going about all of this. In 2017 I became a certified personal trainer and group fitness coach. I held very successful group fitness classes for women twice a day. I met such wonderful souls during this season of my life. In my class every woman there was beautiful no matter what their weight was. They showed up. That's all that mattered. I would tell them the importance of nutrition to better the quality of their life. You can be "fit" and be overweight even obese. How do you feel is the most important question. I wanted all these ladies to feel good in their own skin. I saw laughter and a whole lot of tears in those few years with all my special ladies. I loved I was given the opportunity to help them all fall back in love with the girl in the mirror. I was able to guide them from a place of true empathy. I understood what it was like being blinded by what we tell ourselves we should look like. I am no longer a size 00 and I am totally ok with that. I eat healthy foods and workout daily, but if I want a piece of cake I'm going to eat it! Everything in life is in moderation. The path of a healer goes down a lot of different roads. I'm glad I got to walk that specific path, in that specific point of my life , with those specific human beings. Now I leave you with this. Beauty is the path you travel and not necessarily what we look like. Do you live a beautiful life? I do and I will show gratitude every day I'm blessed enough to start a new day.
I was "too skinny" growing up. Teased about being so thin I looked like a zipper if I stood sideways and stuck my tongue out. Though I wore a size 5 at 5'9" from my teens into my 40's without dieting, I still believed I was fat b/c models weighed some 15-20 lbs less. So I often tried restrictive, low fat diets trying to meet the "ideal". Though I ate the same healthy foods, often less than when I was younger, I began putting weight on in my 40's. Horrified to have gained 20 lbs, I sought medical help. Loved the FenPhen diet! Magic early on until some took too many, causing themselves trouble and it was taken off the…