Journey Toward Fabulousness #3

Anyone who knows me or has seen me at regular intervals throughout the years knows I struggle with my weight. My story is the same as so many overweight women. I was the fat girl in class at a young age. I grew taller and bigger faster than many of the boys, add to that glasses and intelligence, and clumsiness befitting my status as a non-athlete, and it was a recipe for being shunned my boys and girls alike.

Even at my thinnest during my senior year in high school and again before my wedding, it was still a struggle. In high school, I starved myself. In college, I ballooned up from cafeteria food, then lost it during a summer in which I banned carbs and spent hours a day in the gym.


Is that actually a midriff showing?

I gained it all back and then some working for the college newspaper 40 hours a week where many nights were spent pouring over page layouts with a jar of queso and an open bag of tortilla chips on the table beside me. At grad school, I was newly engaged and ready to reinvent myself. I spent 2 years working out religiously - weightlifting, running, elliptical machines, and a "clean diet". I even got close to thinking I might be an amateur bodybuilder.


At my shower before the wedding

But then the wedding came and went, and we made a move back to Illinois and away from my job on a college campus with all day, all-night free gym access. I started packing on the pounds, slowly but surely. I took up running, the only free exercise. Running made me gain weight because I was starving all the time, and runners "get" to eat plenty of carbs to fuel them, right? Wrong. I ran a half marathon at 190 pounds, 40 pounds heavier than I was at my wedding 2 years prior. But these were "happy" pounds. Pounds I gained from being comfortable and happy in my marriage. Happy pounds from being proud of my physical accomplishments, like running a half marathon. Happy pounds in a happy life.

Then. I. got. pregnant. And a fat girl will always look for an excuse to gain weight. Things at work hadn't been stellar. It was easy to hide the emotions in "baby weight". I gained the customary 40 pounds, on top of the extra 40 I was already carrying around.


30 weeks along

Enter a happy, healthy baby boy, and exit my job. I lost 20 pounds of water weight in the first few weeks after Ely's birth, but spent the next 4-6 months putting it back on. Being home all day is the ultimate temptation - cupboards full of food. And I would eat, even if it wasn't good food. Every pound is a sad pound. Every pound is a depressed pound. No pound is in celebration of my son, it was all in the loss of my livelihood.

And now I find myself, nearly 2 years after Ely was born, still carrying around at least 50 pounds of excess weight. (I know I won't get back down to pre-wedding weight 80 pounds ago, but even a loss of 50 would be tolerable).


Me, today

I'd be happy to keep the "happy" pounds, but the "sad" ones need to go away. Unlike college and pre-parenthood, I don't have time for hours in the gym. Or even money for a gym. I'm lucky to have a half hour at night to relax. So maybe changing my thinking about myself - hence the "Journey Toward Fabuluousness" that I'm on - will help me find time, will help me realize that I am worth it after all. I focus on the weight, on the mistakes, on the failure in this aspect of my life more than any.

Today's 3 Fabulous Things:
1. I have done incredible things with my body, including going on 12-hour hikes in the mountains, running half-marathons, and birthing a child with no drug interventions.
2. I eat healthy most of the time. Whole grains, fruit and vegetables, high fiber, lean protein are regular words in my "food vocabulary".
3. When I gain weight, I gain it all over. My fat does not collect itself into one unseemly area (i.e., hips or butt), so at least I'm proportioned!