Friday, January 27, 2017

Another blog?!?

Hello everyone!

I have been writing off and on almost since the inception of my main blog about my personal journey of losing weight, gaining fitness, losing my actual mind, gaining weight, breaking things, and generally noticing what the universe has been telling me- sometimes in subtle ways and sometimes with a nice smack between the eyes with a flyswatter.


After a life of feeling like I need to alter my body, and feeling SO MUCH SHAME about how I look, I have found peace and freedom.  This is the first installment of my journey- and I am definitely not a linear person, so don't expect much of a timeline after these first few paragraphs!

You see, I have spent my life, like many or most women- and some men- imagining that I was not good enough.  I was told over and over through many venues that I did not look like I should.  I did not have the right body, I could not trust myself and I had no idea what I was doing.  Whatever I was doing- it was most certainly wrong.  Now of course, there is a lot more to life than just this- everyone has their crap.  Junk from their childhood, stuff from adolescence, garbage that comes from adulthood, sketchy things gleaned from your family.....  all the imperfect crap that has indeed contributed to making up the unique person that is me/we/us/you.

So about 6 or 7 years ago I found a weight-loss app, and then a running app and a BMI app and 100 pushups app and all the other apps, and apparatus and such, that comes from being sold a program for weight-loss.  I was solidly immersed in this life for 3 years while I lost a lot of weight and attained my "goal weight".....  isn't that lovely?   The ugly side of it was the fact that I was starving myself.  I was tired and hungry and freezing cold---  I, in that whole entire 3 years, never once ate and exercised "perfectly" and so I was never really satisfied.  I was miserable and cranky a lot.  I also over exercised myself into numbness in my hands, wrecked knees and other various injuries that just didn't need to happen.  Now, I can't totally discount those years as I have made some AMAZING friends, people I would never trade for anything, and I did find my voice, my courage and my self-confidence.  All of those experiences have made me uniquely me.

I remember a time when I was eating supper with my hubby at a local restaurant, they specially made me a lovely pasta and veggie plate with marinara.  I planned to eat only half and take the rest home.  I was so close to my goal weight I needed to "watch" every bit.  But my body betrayed me and I ate the whole thing. Because I was freaking starving...... I cried when I got home.  I cried over eating fettuccini.  I remember having people tell me how they wish they could have my willpower and not have bread and the potato when we were out.  I remember standing on the other side of the teachers lounge dying to have a cookie and I had to eventually quit going into that room so I could avoid being tempted.  I remember telling someone that nothing tastes as good as thin feels.....  wow I was full of crap.

When I hit my goal weight, no angels sang and my life did not become better.  I had no idea what to do with myself.  What could I eat- how could I have that many calories and stay the same weight?  How could this work?  It didn't, because diets are not sustainable and they do not work.  They do not. During this period of time, I remember thinking underneath of the calorie obsession that I really wish I didn't have to think about food all the god damn time.  That I could just eat and not think about what  or how much or what time or whatever.  I admitted to myself that I needed to change my life.

So, I was introduced by a well meaning friend to an exercise coach/writer, who had a really good post about smashing your scale- or throwing it away or some such thing.  She is on the right track, but still talks in her blogs about losing fat and gaining muscle.  Which is not a negative thing per se, but she is in the biz of encouraging women to change their bodies.  Well, that led me to another blogger, who I really like- Isabelle Foxen Duke- and I read her blog and found out that she was on this thing called podcasts.  I searched around for more podcasts and found the likes of Summer Innanen and eventually found the work of Anne-Sophie Reinhardt.  And so guess who is podcasting with her now??!!  ME! YAY!  I and a wonderful woman named Leila Hays have teamed up with Anne-Sophie and we have been podcasting for several weeks now.  It is an exciting and amazing thing to do.

I began this blog that is dedicated to body positivity because I am not part of the industry like Anne-Sophie and Leila.  But I have a lot to say and I didn't want to have this all on my other blog.  I have the other one for my personal life and my photography and a bit of art teaching and all, and wanted to have a separate spot for this.  I  have felt over the past few weekends like adding to and responding to the podcast I am on and also to some I listen to.  SO many interesting things.... so much good stuff.  So many ways to say that we are more than good enough.  We don't have to change to suit anyone.



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