Finding Balance

If you are reading this, you may have already guessed that this blog is about being healthy!  Let me first start out by saying that my purpose for writing this is not to preach the word of clean eating and fitness, but to simply share my journey with those who might be interested.  I apologize in advance for the lengthiness of this post and promise that future posts will not be quite this wordy, but if you are not one of those interested parties, I won't take offense - by all means, discontinue reading now...

So if you're still here, I'll tell you a little bit about myself.  I'm 27, happily married, with a toddler and a full-time job as a hairstylist.  Over the past year and a half, I have undergone a transformation that has changed, not only my outward appearance, but everything about who I am as a person and how I approach life.  Okay, that was overly dramatic - not everything...but lots of things...you get the point! :)

To say that I have never been a particularly athletic or fit person would be putting it mildly.  I was definitely that kid that got picked, maayyyyybe second to last (at best) in gym class.  Uncoordinated, clumsy and weak, sports were never my thing.  As a kid and young teenager, I stayed slim only thanks to a quick metabolism, but having grown up on the conveniency of TV dinners and fast food, it soon caught up with me in my late teens and early 20's.  I made various attempts to take the weight off - some successful, others not so much.  But nothing sustainable.  Until now.

When I found out I was pregnant with my daughter it was both the best and worst moment of my life.  The best, for obvious reasons, but the worst because I was already the heaviest I had ever been and the moment the fog of baby euphoria cleared, the first thought in my head was "OH MY GOD, I'M GOING TO GET EVEN FATTER!!"  All hopes of being that cute little pregnant lady with the basketball belly went out the window and all I could think of was "I'm never going to take this weight off."  Even once I gave birth and had gained and lost a respectable 30 lbs (the max recommended healthy weight gain) and my belly went away within 2 weeks, I still was not overly hopeful of getting down to my goal weight of 130 lbs.  But 6 weeks postpartum I decided it was at least worth a try.  

So feeling unbelievably unattractive and massively insecure I took the first tentative steps into the gym.  I can very vividly remember thinking thoughts that I am now ashamed to admit ran through my head, but for the sake of keeping this honest, they were something along the lines of "OMG I'm so ugly, I'm so fat, I'll bet there's not a single one of these musclehead guys that would even look my way because of how disgustingly gross I am.  I'm not worthy."  But something deep down told me to push past these feelings and just go for it.  Despite feeling super self-concious I put on my best "I'm working out, leave me alone" tunnel vision goggles and proceeded to become what I would later come to find out was a "cardio bunny".  It started out every other day, a half hour of cardio, then almost every day more cardio and occasionally I would wander over to the weight machines and start moving stuff around until it looked like I had gotten a good enough workout.  I did this for a year.  My diet was, shall we say, sketchy?  I would pig out on fast food for a day or two and then skip meals on other days to make up for it.  So, yea I lost about 25 lbs or so from my pre-pregnancy weight.  I was feeling pretty good and people were noticing that I had slimmed down.  But then it came to a screeching halt and I plateaued about 10-15 lbs above my goal weight for a few months.  And this was okay with me for a little while - after all I was just happy to be in a "healthy" weight range again, right?  Wrong.  Deep down I wanted to feel good about myself - REALLY GOOD about myself, not just "Oh she looks good compared to how she looked before."

Then about a week before Thanksgiving, marked the one year anniversary that I started the gym.  I was proud that I had kept it up for so long and so religiously but I was starting to get self-concious about the fact that I went so often and well...shouldn't I look better than this?  My hubby was away for a few days and I was left with nothing to do at night but internet surf.  That's when I remembered a good friend at work mentioning that her husband's friend had a YouTube fitness channel.  So I wandered over to it (Click here ---->MattyFusaroTransformation so that you, too may be inspired!) and watched his transformation.  I was floored.  Honestly, you so very infrequently get to have such a dramatic "ah-ha" moment in life, but this was one of them. The fact that this guy, who was a real life person, who went to my high school and was friends with my friends, who wasn't some actor on an infomercial, was able to transform from being overweight to being bodybuilder cut, blew me away.  Proof that with hard work, dedication and knowledge, it could be done.  I started watching his videos and others like it and studying everything I could find on fitness and nutrition.  And when I went to the gym, I no longer felt self-concious.  The part of me that was once riddled with insecurity was now replaced with a feeling of empowerment.  That part of me was now filled with purpose.  I knew what I wanted and I had a blueprint to get it.  

I started lifting weights to build muscle, packing my meals of chicken, brown rice, sweet potatoes, etc. in little tupperware containers and eating 6 small meals a day.  I even (though, initially, the idea struck me as crazy) went out and bought a food scale so that I could be sure of my portion sizes, and started tracking my food on myfitnesspal.com.  It worked and I quickly started seeing the numbers on the scale moving again.  In fact, I even got down to the 130 that I never thought I would actually reach and beyond, down to a weight I hadn't been since I was a teenager.

Happy ending, right? I eat healthy, I work out 6 days a week and I can live happily ever after in a size small!  And yet, there was something missing from my healthy lifestyle.  I knew deep down that there was something wrong.  I had become so "dedicated" to this lifestyle that it sort of took over my mind and made me into a chicken-eating, dumbbell-weilding health nut who's every thought was "how will this decision affect what the scale says tomorrow?"  Orthorexic, distorted body image, eating disorder...however you want to phrase it .  Either way it's not a healthy way of living.  With my husband's support, and the help of friends I had met through Facebook and MyFitnessPal, I was able to come to terms with what I had to do.  I needed to reclaim a healthier perspective on what "being healthy" really means.  To focus on being STRONG, not skinny.  To not allow the numbers on the scale to dictate my mood, and to learn to balance living a healthy lifestyle with enjoying my life SIMULTANEOUSLY. 

Strong, Not Skinny

It was not easy for me to write this blog, as it has divulged so many personal thoughts that I have never shared with anyone before, and I have never been one to let people in very easily.  But I was fortunate enough to have had the oppurtunity to meet someone, recently, who taught me the true value of sharing these thoughts and experiences, and the difference it can make in a person's life when you put fear aside and open up.  This person knows who she is and how much she has inspired me.  So the purpose of this blog, as I said earlier is, not to preach the do's and don'ts of being "healthy", but simply to find my footing in this lifestyle. And if someone else out there can relate and finds my daily struggles and triumphs helpful...well, that would be awesome.  :)