As 2012 comes to a close, I think back to the way I felt at the beginning of the year. I was over weight, unhealthy with a desire to change. I would look at other women and say to myself "I wish I could wake up and look like them" or Why were they born with that body and not me. My knees would hurt if I walked for too long, not to mention out of breath. I wore a size 22 clothes and they were getting to be too small. I had only a few items that still fit but did not want to buy bigger clothes.
I wanted to hide all the time and I did hide from cameras and wanted to stay in the house and just send my family out to the events we were invited to. I did not want my husband to look at me naked and God knows not naked with the light on!! I felt like he deserved to be with someone else who looked as good as he does. Very low self esteem and low confidence.
I finally decided to change ALL of that!! I did research on having weight loss surgery and decided that no more would I lie to myself and say that I could loose the weight on my own!! I wanted to be healthy for myself and be around longer for my children. I did not want them to be embarrassed to have me come to the school for them. I decided that I deserved to be happy and HEALTHY!! I was tired of taking blood pressure medication and was afraid that Diabetes was not far away!! I had to put aside how I thought others would talk about me for having such a surgery...because guess what??? They were talking about me already because of my weight!!
So I had the gastric bypass surgery and it was one of the BEST things I've done for MYSELF!!! I am no longer on blood pressure meds, I feel better, sleep better, look better and enjoy life A LOT MORE!!! I am aware of everything that goes into my mouth and I make a decision not to hurt myself ever again like I did for sooo many years!
My family was very supportive of my decision and are happy that I am now happier! It is a huge adjustment....it is a LIFESTYLE change and a LIFE LONG commitment to myself. But I feel like I am worth that life long commitment to take better care of myself!
I also went after a promotion at work and got it! My husband got a better job and enjoy what he does. We were truly blessed in 2012. I am even thankful for all the trials that came our way. It made us stronger and drew us closer together. If you can't work with your partner then why have a partner?? I learned that there is a blessing in my testing!! It comes to make you stronger, wiser and better!
I am thankful for the support of my readers. Many or few, I thank you for helping keep me accountable on this weight loss journey!
I pray for peace, blessings and triumph for each of you and your families. I hope you go after every dream and reach every goal you set for yourselves in 2013! Why wait til the beginning of the year to set goals for yourself? EVERY day you wake up is another chance to get it right!!
Happy New Year dolls!
So, I was talking with a co-worker about how I've noticed more eye contact since I've lost weight. Which made me think!! When I gained the weight, people would not make eye contact with me so much...especially strangers out and about. Here lately, when I'm shopping for example, strangers will make deliberate eye contact with me and speak!! Why weren't these strangers speaking, and saying excuse me when they want to get by me in the isle and all when I was heavier???
You may say to yourself, "self, was she not paying attention before the weight loss??" The answer is YES I WAS!! I'm the type of person that observes EVERYTHING! My brain is constantly going and analyzing my surroundings! So yes, I did notice that the eye contact was not being made prior to weight loss! But I still want to know WHY this happens?? Have we become a society that is programmed to ignore or push aside the overweight, unpopular, not so pretty, people in this world?? In my opinion, the answer is YES, FOR SURE, CERTAINLY!! Does society care about all the people that are hurt, feels unloved, discarded and all the self esteem issues that are developed, self hatred of ones self; that is created from being pushed aside? In my opinion I say NO, because it continues to happen; so much so that people don't even realize that they do it to another human being! It is the "norm" now days. People don't realize it is done, until it is done to them or someone they love and that person decides to speak on it.
It makes me mad that this happens on a daily basis, and it made me even angrier when I thought about all the times I have been overlooked and not spoken to! What can I do about it?? I'm not really sure at this point. Even sometimes when my husband and I have been out and about and people(strangers) will give eye contact and speak to him but not me! Ugh...this makes me sooo mad the more I think about it! Now all of a sudden, every one every where I go wants to speak to me, makes me not want to speak back or yell DON'T SPEAK TO ME NOW!! But I don't, because that is mean and I'm not usually mean unless I am provoked. (lol)
On a side note, I went to a party a few nights ago and I hadn't seen a lot of the people in attendance in a good while. It was funny to see their reaction to me, and to my surprise a lot of them didn't even know who I was. This has made me start to look harder in the mirror and at pictures that I take of myself. I don't see the person in the pics that I see in the mirror!! When I look at the pics I see a totally different person, I don't recognize that person in the pics. I know she is me but she does not LOOK like me! My husband tells me I look like a different person every time he comes home (he is a truck driver). At first, it was a joke to me and my response would be..."well you have a new wife every time you come home" It was funny then, but now that I realize that I truly do look like a different person...it is so weird to me.
I also thought that by me loosing weight that it would be easier to find clothes in the store vs buying online.....WRONG!! Being in between sizes right now is SOOO frustrating!! I was standing in JC PENNY looking for an outfit to wear to a Christmas party and a Christmas gala and I was about in tears, on the phone with my husband!!! I had gone to 4 different malls and all of the usual plus size clothing stores I shopped in. In the plus size stores, everything was too big or did not fit just right anymore. In the other stores, either they were too big or I clearly did not need to leave the dressing room with the clothes on!! lol. At any rate, I was horribly mistaken by thinking shopping would be a breeze! I don't even want to shop anymore, this took the excitement away from being a smaller size!! I ended up ordering a dress online and bought a size 14, which I had to get altered to like size 13 (I would assume). I felt like I still looked very plus size in the dress, however, everyone told me that I looked great! It is hard to adjust my thinking to the smaller me. What I see in the mirror is again, not what everyone else sees when they look at me. I will be glad when I can see what others see when I look at myself.
I know this post is kinda all over the place, but so is my brain and my train of thought! So bare with me! I guess I had a lot of ideas and thoughts when I started this post and my fingers just kept typing!
Below are a few recent pics of me...enjoy
