According to the BMI charts, I am at an un-healthy weight. Some days, I feel like I am overweight, other days I feel normal. Even so, I have made progress. I have lost about 7 or 8lbs since becoming active on Spark People. Today I felt that it was important to find out why I have issues with my weight. I believe that this essay is a good documentation of my journey. I encourage anyone interested to write their own story and leave the URL in the comments. It will give you insights to your own issues.
I apologize for the length of my own.
The Beginning
In elementary school and junior high I played softball constantly. It kept me healthy and it made me feel strong. I chose the position of catcher, which is basically the boss of the field. Some people think that the pitcher is in charge, but the catcher is telling the pitcher what to do throughout the entire game.
At one point in junior high I reached a weight of 135, which was my very heaviest until college, but I became vegetarian soon after and lost around 15 to 20 lbs. I maintained 115 for a while, but numbers on a scale didn't really mean anything to me. I had a healthy body image and I was not even aware of my weight.
For a long time I dressed like a tom boy in large T-shirts and loose pants. At the time it was what I thought felt "comfortable." Looking back, I think dressed that way to blend in. I had developed a little earlier than other girls, and while it wasn't a conscious issue for me, the clothes I was wearing at that point are still way too big for me now.
The Good Years
When I reached high school, I began to feel like the softball girls were clique-y and judgmental. I am not sure if that was real or just a perception I had. Nevertheless, I wasn't fitting in with them anymore.
I'm not sure how it happened, but my sophomore year I started running in the fall with the cross country team. It was a revelation for me. I was fast, I felt like I finally fit in with the girls on my team, and my already normal self-esteem rose even higher. That spring, I had to choose between my beloved softball, and track and field. I chose track and never went back.
I kept running throughout high school. I ended up being the girl's captain of both the Cross Country team and the Track Long Distance team. After my sophomore year, my running times slowed, but I was reliable. My senior year, I received the award of MVP from the coach, and most inspirational from my fellow teammates. I still cherish those awards.
The Bad Years: Freshman Year
When I left for college I weighed 125, and I looked GOOD. I felt confident with myself. But along with college comes laziness, sleep loss and caffeine overloads. Dining commons offer unlimited amounts of unhealthy food and drink. To top it all off, I ended up with two roommates who were weight obsessed.
They constantly talked about how they looked, and about losing weight. One of the girls did have an unhealthy weight, but the other, was very skinny. They would go on crash diets where they would starve themselves and other times they would make themselves throw up if they over ate. At one point they had some sort of pills that they bought that were supposed to suppress your appetite. I think those pills were meant for kids with ADD, not college students who wanted easy weight-loss.
I was still a smart girl, and I knew bad ideas when I saw them, but being surrounded by self-criticism and obsession took its toll. My self confidence dropped, and my battle with my own weight began. Constantly thinking about food made me eat more. I gained weight until I was tipping the scales at 139, just 2 lbs away from my BMI limit of 141.
Then I got mono.
The Bad Years: Second Chances?
The mono was horrible. I took the Spring quarter off, and went home. I slept 22 hours out of the day and I could hardly drink water, let alone eat. I ended up surviving on instant miso soup for several months. When that ordeal was over, my weight had dropped down to 125. I felt like I had been given a second chance with my body. My habits, however, had not changed. I still over ate, and I still rarely exercised. I just assumed that because I was no longer living in the dorms with the all-you-can-eat DCs that things would be fine. I assumed wrong.
When I weighed myself again, I was 132 and I was still living with the same roommates that were so bad for my body-image. I think my body liked 132 because it is the number that I have often come to see as normal for me. At one point though, my housemate told me that the "extra pounds" looked bad on me. I was only 5 or 6 lbs away from the weight that I had felt so confident at. I "tried" to drop down below that weight, but without the proper information or tools about how to lose weight, it didn't happen.
When I learned to make bread, I gained even more weight. I stressed out about how I looked, and I vowed to "lose weight" over and over, but nothing really changed. I obsessed over food, and I occasionally would count calories for a day or two until I lost interest. I didn't have a set amount that I thought I should be eating; I just guessed that any number less than 1000 calories would be good. Of course, that was impossible to maintain and I never did.
A New Outlook
The next year, my junior year, I moved into a new apartment with a new roommate. She was overweight, but she appeared confident and happy with herself. Soda, and fast food were her main source of sustenance and it rubbed off on me. To make the soda problem worse, we even had a soda machine a few steps away from our door. I started eating out and drinking soda way more than I ever had in the past.
My weight would occasionally rise to 134 or 137, once it even rose to 142, but living with her was good for me in terms of body image and self-esteem (although not in any other way). Since I wasn't in an unhealthy environment, I could always take control of my eating habits long enough to bring my weight back down to 132. I still coveted my high school body. I wanted to be 115 or 125 so badly. At one point, I heard about SparkPeople from someone on the health board on Makeup Alley.
I joined and I did lose weight. I started at around 135lbs and the Sparkpeople tools worked for me. I became more conscious of what I was eating, and made better choices. I still snuck the occasional soda from the machine, but the program worked. During that first Fast Break (2 weeks) I dropped down to 130 and I think once the scale even hit 129. It had happened so fast. I was excited.
Italian Summer
Just when my Fast Break stage would have been upgraded, I went to Italy to study abroad for the summer. The internet there was not so great, so I stopped using SparkPeople. Since we were walking everywhere I thought the exercise would cancel out all of the cappuccinos, gelato, pasta and pizza that I was eating. It didn't.
The last day I was in Italy, I found a scale that we used to weigh our luggage with. I weighed myself as well. I thought the scale was off when it told me I weighed so much.
When I got home I was horrified to find that the scale had not lied. I was over 150lbs. That was not only over my BMI limit, but it was over 10lbs more than I had ever weighed in my whole life. Even though it created more work for me, I do not regret the weight that I gained in Italy. I ate with passion while I was in Rome. I enjoyed everything. I savored every minute of it. Given the chance, I would do it all over again.
For a week or so after I came home, I didn't do anything about my weight. I lost several lbs without trying now that my food intake was not mainly gelato and pizza. In Italy I had only brought one pair of jeans; they were my fat, painting jeans, so I hadn't noticed myself growing. Now home, none of my clothes fit. Even after the first couple of pounds dropped, I had no jeans that would button, my shirts were too tight, and even my underwear was small. I wanted more.
Taking Control: Part 1
I returned to Spark People just as I was moving out into a different apartment to begin my senior year. I broke my trusty scale in the move, and I felt like it was the end of the world. I found one by the dumpster, that was old and looked ancient. It was not digital, and so I assumed that it was useless; I kept it anyway. I was not going home for two weeks, the span of a fast break, and I was panicking over how I was going to weigh myself. I was the girl who only lost weight when I was weighing myself daily, occasionally more than once a day. I tried the local gym, but their scale was (and still is) horribly calibrated, and, therefore, useless to me.
I actually went the entire two weeks without weighing myself. And I did lose weight. I had been meticulous about measuring my portions and logging on the Nutrition tracker. I attempted to drink enough water, and I followed everything I was supposed to. It taught me that the scale is helpful, but not absolutely necessary as I had thought.
The next week I had to go on a weekend trip. I had no control over the portions on my plate, I had no access to internet. People would grab me dessert along with theirs in attempts to be nice, and when I cut edges off of things to cut calories, people would make comments. I felt like I was out of control again and I felt like a failure. Instead of changing my Spark People status from Fast Break to the next level, I left it where it was, where it still is. I became flaky about drinking water, and logging my daily food.
Taking Control: Part 2
Now I am taking control again. I have decided that everything that has happened in the past was a part of my journey, and I have not failed yet, because I have kept coming back to make an effort towards becoming healthier. I have my "new" Fast Break period marked on my calendar, and when that time is over, I will move on, to the next level. I have stagnated here, but no more.
I am using the back of my door as a motivational wall. I posted my goals, my SparkPeople Health Pledge card, and a health poster on it. I can read them from my bed and they are the first things I see in the morning. I add inspirational things to my door every couple days.
I am using that janky old scale that I found next to the dumpster. I weigh myself when I feel like it: sometimes several times a day, sometimes not at all. Weighing myself daily gives me instant motivation, no matter what the scale says. If it is low I am elated and want to work harder. If it is high, it gives me motivation to do better. Some people can't handle the scale that often, but I take whatever I see with a grain of salt. The only times I take it seriously are on Thursday mornings, which are my "log in" days. I weigh myself, and measure my waist, hips, underbust and thighs.
In addition to counting calories and strategically using the scale, I have been going out running again. I posted a message about finding a running buddy on Facebook and even received responses. Although none of the responses have panned out, I am still getting outside and going. I have even signed up for a 10K next month.
I am not going to fail. It isn't an option. I will succeed with or without the help of my community because my body and my health are my own responsibility. I am the only one who has the power to change me, and I am stubborn. I will do this for me.
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