First off:
The Steemit Fitness Challenge has ended! I managed to stick with it through the entire thing! Although I didn’t hit every goal I had hoped to hit, I did well and stayed consistent (which is usually my biggest failure… consistency!)
Secondly...
And now, for the rest of the story:
So, one year ago (next month) I was getting ready to start out on what would turn out the be a significant turning point in my life. I was reaching the end of my rope and yet I had no idea that this decision would be so completely life changing for me. I had spent February and March 2017 trying several last ditch diet efforts. The supplements, the shakes, the patches, the pills, everything I could find to try… I was desperate. In the end, I didn’t need any of those things. They didn’t help with my mindset and they didn’t help with the weight, even though things like that had been very successful for me in the past (even for the short term).
- I have posted about my battle with the 80-90 lb weight gain that hit me nearly 7 years ago in less than a year at age 40.
- I have posted about my struggle with disordered eating/body image, etc.
- I have posted about my progress in the last year and the fact that I have been more emotionally healthy this time and focused on sustainable changes and habits for the first time ever.
And this month marked 11 months since this whole journey started. I can't believe it's been almost ONE YEAR! I didn’t know at that time that I’d be looking back a year later, totally awestruck that something finally changed in me. In not only my physical body (awesome!), but also within my emotional health (even MORE awesome!)
First off, you should know that I have never been consistent with diet or exercise for this long before. I was always the “If I can’t see results immediately, then it’s not worth doing!” and extreme diet/workouts that I couldn’t keep up with. I would end up quitting after weeks or months because I was exhausted, stressed out, or in some cases, because I was injured from pushing myself so hard.
I did have a point a few years ago where I worked out 5-6 days a week, gave up alcohol and mostly watched what I ate for 6 months. That was the longest stretch I’ve had… but I was still suffering from body dismorphia and lack of “progress.” I felt like shit half the time, still felt ‘too fat’ most of the time and the scale would barely budge. I was frustrated as hell, kept getting injured from lifting weights and not listening to my body.
I was making GOOD progress, but I still hated myself, hated my body and felt like a failure. I could see that there were changes, but I still felt incredibly fat because the image I had settled in my head wouldn't let me see the progress I was making. The whole experience left me feeling hopeless.
Hopeless that I would ever lose the weight. Hopeless that I would ever feel comfortable in my skin. Hopeless about most everything going on with me. I attributed the constant injuries to the fact that I was “OLD” and not to the fact that I was overworking myself, not eating enough and not resting enough. I thought that it was just the end of the road… and I was only 43 years old! I was giving up and when I had to go back to work, everything just fell apart with my routine. I gained the weight that I had lost back, all of the muscle I had built fell away and I got even fatter than I had been before. I sunk into a severe depression and no longer even recognized myself in the mirror.
I continued hiding from myself, avoiding pretty much everyone (including my husband) and fell into a deep pit of depression even worse than I had been in before. I just couldn’t find my way out. I spent countless hours searching google for help. My search history was full of "How do I accept my body" "How do I learn to love my body" "Learning to be body positive" and so on. Nothing that I read ever seemed to 'click.' I am not exaggerating when I say that I spent hours reading up on this topic every night for well over a year, if not longer.
THEN, one year ago… (This is a long ass story that I will try to condense as much as I can) My husband was living on our sailboat in the Dominican Republic with our son. He was back for a 3 week visit, but we had spent more time apart by that point than we had spent apart during the previous 23 years together COMBINED. On his last night visiting, I was trying to communicate my issues, my mental self, my physical self… all of it. I was trying so hard to come to terms with being ‘bigger’ and I just could not do it.
I was a sobbing mess, trying to explain that the weight was not just this ‘thing’ that I had to deal with when it came up, but something that I had to deal with every minute of every single day. Putting on socks? Stressful, because I couldn’t even reach my damn feet without struggling to breathe. Tying shoes was even worse. Trying to exercise? Super stressful, because I could feel the workout clothes pinching at me, reminding me of all the extra padding I was carrying around. Riding a bike or doing squats caused my stomach to hit my thighs and sent me into a mental tailspin that took a while to get out of. I would literally dissociate so that I didn’t freak the hell out because my body was so big and I simply didn’t feel like myself anymore. I felt like I was trapped in a fat suit. Sitting down and feeling my stomach on my legs was awful. Getting into and out of a car? I felt huge. Getting in and out of the dinghy or the sailboat? It was such a huge struggle for me physically that I would have to focus 100% on not crying in front of everyone because of it. Feeling awkward and unable to even swim because I was so out of shape? CHECK!
Being touched was horrifying, because I could just imagine what he was thinking/feeling about my squishy, fat self. He never said it, but I knew that he never cared much for ‘soft’ and was much more interested in me when I was fit and muscular. (For the record, he wasn't a jerk about it, ever. Some of my reaction was just a reflection of my own thoughts, but I'm also realistic enough to know that everyone has their physical preferences. He absolutely was unwavering in his love and dedication to me throughout every size/mental melt down, etc.)
I KNOW that he didn’t understand and I still don’t even understand myself. It was mortifying to feel so out of touch with myself and to look in the mirror and not be able to even SEE Me.
Another weird truth for me was that I could look at other plus size women and see them as beautiful, sexy, even… but not me. I would even think, "Well yeah, if I looked curvy and beautiful like SHE DOES" or "Well, SURE, if I looked as good as she looks!" or even "Well maybe if I could find clothes that made me look that sexy, then SURE!" (and all of the awesome plus size bloggers? I wished I could have half of their confidence and style!) I felt like a lump. None of the things that had helped me lose weight in the past were working anymore. Hell, I GAINED the weight whilst teaching 5 fitness classes a week and dieting! (In this case, I truly think that decades of financial stress and constant insomnia in addition to hormones caused most of my issues. My body and my adrenals had to have been completely and utterly exhausted.)
This "talk" with him, this "one last try" of pills and supplements that failed, this was my final straw. I found the fasciablaster at this point and ordered it. I ordered it with a HORRIBLE attitude of "This is going to be stupid and worthless, too, but I might as well try one more thing."
I think at this point must have been the beginning of the mental and emotional shift that brought me to where I am today, but that's the beginning. Once I got the blaster, I decided to wait until after Patrick left to try it. Then I decided to wait until April first because... well, it was the first of the month AND, my humor told me it was going to be a joke, so why not start on April first, right?
April Fool's Day! I felt like a FOOL! HAHAHA * sobbing *
I took a progress video... one last time and started using the fasciablaster. At first I just used it for a few minutes in a hot shower after doing a little bit (like one song worth) of light cardio (I was in such bad shape, even doing a ONE song workout left me sweaty and breathless). I took photos after two weeks... and was stunned. I saw a difference. Holy crap. I SAW A DIFFERENCE.
And THAT was the beginning of several changes. That was my turning point. That is what gave me hope that I could change things. I could change my actual physical body and even my blind, distorted vision could see CHANGE.
When I saw those photos, I felt like anything was possible. That is what started me on the path to give up alcohol (for almost a year now), to start paying attention to how much I was eating, to FINALLY start listening to my body instead of trying to fit into someone else's "THIS IS HOW YOU LOSE WEIGHT" or "This is THE ONLY WAY to be healthy"
And That is how the fasciablaster started this almost year long journey for me.
I can look back on these years NOW and see so much more. I can still touch on the desperation, the hopelessness and despair that I felt from being stuck in that space, mentally and physically… but at the same time, it feels like it was so long ago. Now I am in a healthy enough place to see that it didn't even matter what I looked like. I hated myself and felt fat through ALL of these sizes and shapes, even though NOW I can see that I was just FINE and at times, even TOO thin! At the time, though, I was miserably unhappy with myself through most of these stages. Whether it was because I was unhealthy, starving and a crazy emotional mess, or because I still just couldn't see that I was fine as I was... it's crazy to me to look back at that photo, the 5th one on the top row? When I first saw that photo, I literally CRIED and hid the photo away before anyone else could see it, because I thought I was so disgusting and fat (and that led to one of the many starving, exercising fanatical phases I went through):
This time, right now, is the first time I've felt comfortable in my skin in DECADES. The first time I've been able to accept myself now and feel like the progress I'm making is just "extra" it's the icing on the cake, not the absolutely must have thing that will finally make me happy. I am happy now and loving the journey, even though this slow progress would have made me CRAZY a few years ago. I'm... oddly content with myself, my life, my body and my emotional self. That is phenomenal to me. If you've ever been in such an unhealthy mental and emotional place, maybe you'll get it.
In the coming weeks, I’m going to write more about my mental health journey over the last year. The things that worked for me and helped me on a physical AND emotional level. That will be where my “Weightloss Wednesday” posts go for now. THEN, I hope to start some new habits and add to this process that I’ve finally started to getting healthier, inside, outside and mentally.
I hope that maybe someone else can find inspiration and motivation to find out what works for them and make healthy, sustainable changes themselves. The only thing that I find myself frustrated by at this point is that it took me SO long to figure it out and to start respecting my body enough to truly listen and treat it right.
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