I am in my final days of recovery. I honestly can’t believe it. Some days I can’t believe any of it. Somedays, I still dream (nightmare?) that I’m in my old body, my old life. Now that I’m in this life and this body, there’s no way I’d ever go back. I don’t worry that I’ll gain the weight back. I don’t worry that our lives will slowly go back to the way they were before. But I do worry that this has all been a dream.

Have you ever gotten exactly what you wanted? Have you ever thought you’d just go for it and made it? Have you ever dreamed of a different life and then woke up in it? I know I worked everyday for this. I made hard choices over and over again to get here. I was there for every skipped hamburger bun and every mile run. I was there when I left plus size clothes forever. I was there when I switched careers and started a whole different path. I was there as my husband kept learning to relove me over and over. I made all those choices. I did this. And yet…..it’s all a dream.

I’ve spent 30-34 years of my life (depending on what issue we are talking about…..) wanting to be different. I wished I could figure out how to love myself, to love other people. I thought if I could fix myself, love would be easier. I used to always feel unloved and empty. I don’t remember many emotions for a lot of years. I felt some happiness, some sadness but small bouts of each. There had to be more. This couldn’t be the life that people talk about. Is this what it’s like for everyone? It can’t be. Am I the only one asleep while everyone else is awake?

Being overweight was only one of the things I didn’t like about myself. It’s the easiest to identify and find commonality in. Eating disorders (of which I’ve had all types) are highly accessible and visible. They’re also changeable. However, there are large parts of who I am that aren’t changeable, parts that I was taught are wrong. How do you learn to love yourself when you were taught to hate yourself? I guess the answer is develop an eating disorder and figure it out 20 years later? Wow. That hurt.

When it comes down to it, this is a love story. Not a weight loss story. This is my journey to self love and how it’s brought me the best days of my life. The more I love myself, the more I love my life. People have been coming into my life lately that really feed my soul. Sometimes you just meet people and know they serve a purpose to your life. Your soul sisters and brothers. I’m slowly piecing my life into what I want now and what it should have been all along. People say to me all the time now “I’m not sure what it is about you…”

I know what it is.

I’ve let go of my shame. Someone recently said to me “You know guilt and shame are two different emotions right?” That took me a few days to process. I’ve felt so much shame in my life. Shame that I couldn’t be a better daughter. Shame that I was overweight. Shame that I wasn’t a good wife or lover. Shame that I didn’t follow the path laid out by my parent’s expectations. Shame about not wanting to be a mother. The list is pretty long and probably could have gone on forever. Some of these were fixable and some weren’t. I can’t keep feeling shame for things I can’t change. So I’ve decided to just let it go.

Since letting go, I’m weightless. People notice. People are drawn to my confidence and comfort. People talk to me everywhere I go and I make new friends all the time. A few years ago I struggled to keep just a few friends. Life is easier. Love is easier. Everyone says I look different. It isn’t the surgery that changed my smile, it’s the love.

I feel an entire spectrum of emotions now instead of being confined to just a few. I feel very little of my anxiety motor running. Maybe anxiety is shame called by a different name? That’s a post for another day……. I know this is a weight loss blog but the weight didn’t really change me. The surgery didn’t really change me. Love did.

There are some words that you just don’t say because they are painful to hear. I’m not talking about swear words. There are words that have power like: love, God, breathe, good and evil. Words that have power invoke a feeling, a memory. Then there are heavy words, words that you almost stop yourself from saying. Heavy words bear down on the back of your throat not only in the consonants they tend to carry but in the taste they leave behind. They are usually extreme circumstances or rarities. When you say these words you hope they don’t invoke a feeling or memory. You hope you go your entire life without hearing them, understanding them or worse: experiencing them.

Fat. Hate. Rape. Assault. Abuse. Suicide. Did you have a guttural response to any of those words? Did they hurt to read? To hear in your minds voice? If they have happened to you, then they probably did. How many of those on that list do you think apply to me? How many apply to you?

As I read the words back, fat doesn’t seem as severe as the others, but it’s a word I use all the time. Its makes people visibly uncomfortable. I, of course, only use it in context for myself. My old self. When I do, people want to correct me. They want to soften the blow of what it really was and what I really looked like. I lived in that body and I knew it best. I was fat. No matter what you call it, I still was. I’ve heard it all: But you have such pretty eyes, but it’s really about the personality, but………… It doesn’t matter.

Calling something by a different name, doesn’t change what it is. Sugar coating and denial isn’t helping anyone. It hurt to refer to myself as fat for a long time. Then eventually, the word lost a lot of its weight for me. (Pun not actually intended this time.) It became lighter to say and to hear. Now, I’m surprised by other people’s sensitivity to the word because it is normal to my world. Then the other day I heard a word that broke my world.

I’ve not really understood most of the reasons for being fat until this last six months. I still think there were multiple layers for me but one of my biggest blankets has been mislabeled for a long time. Sometimes you think what happened to you is normal because you’ve never asked anyone. Sometimes you think it’s happened to everyone. Not knowing its name didn’t change its effect on me. Not calling it what it was didn’t make it ok. I turned out pretty screwed up just the same. It scarred me; regardless of its name.

While chatting with a newer friend recently, she said one of those words. And she meant it about me. And she meant it about what I just told her. **I do mean to be intentionally vague. There will always be parts of my story that aren’t public for everyone. It just has to be that way.**

I didn’t hear what she said for a long time after that . I just kept hearing the word over and over. Then I ran checklist. What do I know about trauma victims; people that have experienced rape, assault and/or abuse? High level of anxiety, ‘walking on eggshells’ feeling, love hard and fast, tendencies toward worry and guilt…….oh shit.

The word hurt. To realize it described me hurt worse. It hasn’t really stopped hurting since that day. She said it so freely, I knew she’d experienced it too. Takes one to know one I guess. I’m hoping the more I understand the word and how it’s effected who I am, the less weight it will carry. The less weight it carries, the less it will hopefully bear down its weight on me.

I think this has been a missing piece of my puzzle for a long time. Truly understanding my past is changing my future. Things about my personality that I’ve been trying to rewrite are now making sense. Parts of myself that I’ve been trying to fix now seem fixable.

If you are on a journey, any kind of journey, you gotta dig deep. You have to get to that bottom and figure. it. out. There’s things you’re avoiding. There’s words you don’t want to remember. There’s times that changed you, molded you to where you are now. Find it. Fix it. Heal.

Sometimes I sit down to write at this computer and I feel nothing. I’m not sure what to say. I’m not sure what it is that I want to say. I’m a feeler and I’m a fighter. What I feel I feel deeply and it’s hard for me to do almost anything halfway. Because of this, I tend to feel all or nothing.

Digging into the reasons of why I was obese to begin with, curing my anxiety and establishing new boundaries has been quite painful. It would be easier to just not. It would be easier to just be a dry drunk; to take my drugs away but not solve the problem. I could ignore it. I could pretend. Digging for weeks and weeks has left me exhausted. Somedays my hard drive needs to defrag.

On days like these, I hide at the local coffee shop. I’m an extrovert and I recharge around others. When I’m not at work, I find it hard to be alone lately. I have to stop myself from texting people and seeking attention all day. Thankfully almost everyone I know works normal hours when I’m at my most annoying. Being at the coffee shop helps me feel socialized without sucking everyone into my drama. I’m a private person and I keep a very small inner circle. (If you’ve made the cut, consider yourself lucky 🙂 ) What I share here might seem super personal, but it’s only a small part of my life.

People that have been through a lot of shit, we like to figure it out ourselves. Our track record fo getting ourselves through days so far is 100%. So I take myself to the coffee shop, hide in the corner and slowly begin to figure it all out.

The past three months for me have been a lot. A LOT. There’s parts I’ve shared here and parts I haven’t. I guess the point I’m trying to make is, while my journey is over to the person I wanted to be, I never envisioned the person I’m becoming. When you start to ask yourself the right questions, you start to get your answers. Pieces fall into place and I think I’m starting to become whole.

Have you ever seen the most beautiful sunrise thought, “Crap. Another day.” I used to wonder how many days I’d get off work if I got in a car accident. I felt loved and happy less than 25% of the time. TV and food were my favorite past times and I could feel a silent scream building inside that frightened me. I thought this was totally normal.

When you try something on at the store but it doesn’t fit, you don’t buy it. When you order it online, if there’s a store to go to, maybe you’ll return it. If it’s online only……chances are you’ll end up keeping it if it wasn’t very expensive or giving to a girlfriend. Now imagine buying something online, site unseen because it’s been chosen for you, and you have to wear it everyday of your life. It costs years of salary and it’s non refundable. The outfit arrives. It doesn’t fit and it’s hideous.

Your choices are to send it back and still be out a crap ton of money or make it work. There’s no way you can buy another. So, you make it fit. You try to wear it under and over other things but, no matter how hard you try, it just doesn’t fit. But you have no choice right? You just keep wearing it day in and day out. This is how my life felt in the Midwest.

I grew up a red headed, straight, white, Christian girl in the far far suburbs of Chicago. I went to church on Sundays and Wednesday’s. My first boyfriend and first kiss were the Pastors Grandson. (PS he’s now married to a man) I didn’t ask a lot of questions. I was taught to be quiet and respectful. I never knew what it was like to be a victim of stereotype or even know what privilege meant. Everyone I knew looked like me and did the same things I did. It’s just what…..you did.

I took piano lessons starting in kindergarten and loved music from an early age. I’ve always shown a high aptitude for music and arts. I grew up in the theatre as well and performed in shows, concerts and recitals for decades. My mom watched every single one. I never had much talent for sports, although I tried. When it came time to go to college, it was a no brainer that I’d go to music school and become a teacher. If I’d known then what I know now, that was one of my first big mistakes but I made the choice on my own.

When I moved to college we started going to the city all the time. I learned my way around Chicago and can still navigate downtown by the smell of the water. I even dated a man that lived downtown that was much too old for me for a while. Scandalous I know. It was my first real experience of spreading my arms and making the choices I wanted. It felt incredible. I loved the city and couldn’t get enough. I dreamed of moving there or transferring to one of the schools downtown. I even filled out and application. I felt drawn to the city. Then I started dating Dan.

Dan is an introvert and much different than me. Intrinsically were nearly identical but we definitely live our days on different wave lengths. My parents were always a little concerned about him even though they loved him right away. Dan wasn’t a strong Christian and that’s who I was expected to marry. Dan wasn’t even a Christian at all really. They thought he’d poison me, and they were right but that would be years and years later.

For the first five years of our marriage we did it. We had a house we rented, a dog, attended church with friends, came home to celebrate birthdays and holidays, obligatory mediocre sex and I was a full time teacher. Everyone was asking “When are you going to have kids?” I had everything I’d ever wanted, right? I was totally miserable.

I was more excited by cheeseburgers and The Bachelor than I was having sex, so I just ate more and more. I was more excited about a day of going no where than seeing friends, so I just became more immobile. Every moment of worth I got from my job and I had no inner self worth. I didn’t look forward to any days really, everyday felt the same.

I feel like I could keep writing this post forever so I’m gonna wrap it up: nothing in my life in Illinois felt like it fit. I always dreamed of getting out and changing. I almost didn’t. I almost didn’t choose a different life for myself. I was supposed to fit in there because I was supposed to be a lot of things. I was supposed to marry a Christian man and have 2.5 kids and a white picket fence in a good school district. Instead I have an agnostic man who just got a vasectomy before we end up with an unwanted kid in our tiny city apartment. The Midwest and the life that I was supposed to have didn’t fit me. I know I disappointed some people and broke some hearts along the way. I know that who I am now makes some people from my past uncomfortable. I know it’s hard to see me change when you haven’t. I’m sorry if you’ve accepted a life that displeases you; I refuse.

I have panic attacks. It’s happened since high school and sometimes occurs without warning. Sometimes I can feel it building all day. Sometimes I go months without having them and sometimes it happens a few times in a week. It’s been 6 months since I’ve had one, till a few weeks ago.

Sometimes I’m triggered into an attack when I’m already overwhelmed and over stressed. Sometimes it’s more emotional. Since my anxiety branches from trauma, feelings that remind me of that time can also pull me into an attack. This time it was only four words from Dan.

It’s hard for me to be vulnerable. I don’t trust easily and I am hard to get to know. I’m much more likely to keep you at arms length than let you into my wolf pack. I don’t maintain a lot of close friendships and usually only have best friends. I like to control my environment and I’m a great puppet master. Lately, I’ve felt super vulnerable as I step into who I really am. It’s uncomfortable and scary but the closer I get, the less anxiety I feel. The more I’m comfortable, the more my wolf pack accepts and loves me. I’ve never been closer to my best friends than I am right now. I usually feel an underlying anxiety 80% of the time. I’m good at hiding it and I’ve learned to carry it as my passenger. But as I learned to hide my anxiety, I also learned to hide the reasons it was there. The more I expose my demons and slay them, the more at calm I feel. As the anxiety recedes, I’m able to feel emotions that I haven’t felt in a long time. The other day I cried because I was genuinely happy. Twice. If I had to label my anxiety now, I’d say it’s at 30% of the time.

I thought I was over panic attacks. I’ve only had a handful in the last two years. After a particularly vulnerable night, I knew Dan and I needed to talk. The first words he said to me threw into an instant panic attack. He was trying to express some feelings and chose the wrong words. What I heard was “You are unlovable now” which is like my #1 fear in life. Trigger attack. Once I’m in an attack I’m unreachable and unreasonable for 15 mins to an hour. It’s exhausting. You can see and hear yourself doing it but have no control over what’s happening. It’s likes the worst fight you’ve ever had with someone you’d never ever want to hurt, but it’s you that you’re fighting. It’s you that’s hurting. And you just have to watch yourself do it to yourself. I can’t really talk when it’s happening. Dan just held me and waited. He’s seen it once before so he understood what he was seeing. I’m almost always alone when it happens. It’s embarrassing. Which means I should probably share it with all of you.

I’ve been doing great overall. Mostly keeping my shit together and ducks in a row. I’m at 90% usual energy and 50% on workouts. I still don’t sleep at all but I’m used to it at this point. That night was a surprise. I guess I thought I was cured from all this crap? I’m shedding everything: literally skin, emotional weight, items from my home, items from my life that no longer bring me any purpose. I’m just so over it. They say you shouldn’t make big decisions when you’re grieving……but I’m pretty sure empty CDs from the 90s don’t need space in my home anymore. Everything that happens is lessening the load on my soul.

I’m also getting back to reading which I haven’t been doing. I listen to audiobooks and lots of podcasts. I read workout and fitness articles. But now I’m really reading. Reading for my soul and it feels good. I’d apologize for the language in this post but I’m just not sorry. I want to be in the place where four words can’t send me into an attack. I want to be in the place where no one’s opinions, thoughts or words have so much power over me. I want to be unfuckwithable. I’m getting closer and closer everyday.

I’ll leave you with this short but effective poem by c c spicer:

Certain things may have happened to you that

caused a lot of pain.

But remember, you are getting a lot stronger in

the process.

It’s not hurting you, it’s building you.

You are unfuckwithable.

⁃ c. c. spicer

Just because you’ve never had a weight problem doesn’t mean you won’t understand my story. Pain is pain. I wore my pain on the outside like a blanket; it was visible for all to see. Some people wear theirs silently as a passenger, unconsciously guiding their decisions. Some people funnel theirs into obsessions of work or religion. I’ve seen and experienced pain masked with addiction and what it does to those around you. This year I’ve seen a lot of depression and worse: lost someone to suicide. Again.

Have you ever been in a huge crowd and still felt alone? Have you felt like you were the only person to not have the answer when everyone else does? Have you ever felt like the elephant in the room? Have you ever looked in the mirror and not recognized the face looking back at you? Have you ever tried to appear like you have everything in control when really you’re a hot mess? This was my everyday. I was trapped in a body, mind, place and life where I didn’t feel like I belonged.

I’ve been a writer my whole life. I submitted a poem to a book when I was in fourth grade. (Mrs. Gernez’s class, where my future husband was also a student, insert ‘awe’ here. Actually, I don’t figure out he’s awesome for a lonnnnng time.) It was accepted in one of those books that has thousands of poems from all ages across the country. It was a poem about fall and leaves and not at all impressive. But that’s when I started writing. I’ve kept journals for most of my life. I don’t always write what’s happened in the day. Sometimes I write letters to people that I’ll never deliver. Sometimes I had entire journals to myself. I went to a really great public high school and got a fantastic writing education. Shout out to Ms. Sue Boldt who prepared us all for real world writing and made it feel accessible for me. Writing is how I process and remember that I’m changing. Sometimes going back and reading them is as hard as writing them was in the first place. Sometimes it’s even harder. Lately, I don’t even know what I’m going to write on here before it comes out.

I’ve been changing rapidly since the surgery. I guess it started a month or two before. Dan says he saw it cascading since last June. Whatever the case, I’m the happiest I’ve ever been. I’m accessing emotions I haven’t genuinely felt in a really long time. The surgery didn’t fix me but it’s helping me shed the last of the blanket I’ve been wearing my whole life. The more I become myself, the more I love myself. The more I love myself, the more I recognize myself.

I feel like there was an entire decade of my life, at least, where I didn’t recognize my reflection. Don’t get me wrong; I knew what I physically looked like. But If I had to look myself in the eye for 10 minutes to win $10,000, I don’t know if I could have done it. It wasn’t that I thought I was unattractive or didn’t want to look at myself. I didn’t really recognize who I’d become. I couldn’t have been that honest with myself. Eye contact takes confidence. Now I make eye contact with myself all the time and love what I see. For years I’ve made eye contact with everyone. You can’t teach classes of middle schoolers without making eye contact. But now I make eye contact with strangers. Now I can hold it till there’s that last brief second that they get uncomfortable. You learn so much about a person in that second.

There was a time in my life that I wrote poetry. I’m sure there’s some random ex boyfriend poems still floating around the midwest somewhere. I thought I still wrote them every once in a while. The last one I could find was 8 years old. Most of them were about anger or sadness. I’m not sure when I stopped writing them. I’ve been writing here for a few years now but before that? It feels like there’s this entire portion of my life where it goes dark. I was dark. Nothing blossoms in the dark. When I think back to those times, I don’t know what I would have written about. There was a lot of pain and misunderstanding who I was. I couldn’t speak for my needs when I didn’t know what they were.

Writing is another way I face myself in the mirror. Most times I cry when I write these for you. I try to edit them as little as possible and leave them as the raw stream of the my thoughts that they are. I couldn’t write back then. I couldn’t face what was really happening. I didn’t have the strength to change yet.

Recently I made a list of all the things that I thought I had to be to be loved. It wasn’t very long. If I could be those things, I could control the love in my life. If I could just be those things, maybe I could feel loved. The truth was: I never wanted to be any of those things. They were all things I thought I had to be. Over the years, I’ve slowly let each of them go. These were my barriers; the things that didn’t allow me to love myself. As I shed layers, I feel more like myself. As I chose who and what I want to be, I attract more love into my life. By letting my heart sing, others have heard my song.

Today I was reading a few self love poems and came across this Maya Angelou one I don’t think I’ve ever read. Or maybe I just read it differently now. She was such a beautiful writer. :

Still I Rise

BY MAYA ANGELOU

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I’ll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
’Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I’ll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops,
Weakened by my soulful cries?

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don’t you take it awful hard
’Cause I laugh like I’ve got gold mines
Diggin’ in my own backyard.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I’ll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I’ve got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history’s shame
I rise
Up from a past that’s rooted in pain
I rise
I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.

Friday I went to yoga class for the first time in 7 weeks. I was super excited to go because I love my yoga time. For those that don’t know: I’m always going 90 miles an hour. I do 100 things in a day and have a hard time being quiet and still. This is something I’m still working on. Yoga is a way I make myself slow down. It helps reset me; ground me. Friday’s at 6am is my go to class. Always. I love my routines and my yoga teacher, Chris. Not having yoga in my life (or in my body) was hard over this recovery period.

I wasn’t sure what I’d be able to do before class. I couldn’t do it all. I could feel my body fighting me. I’d ask it do something and it would say ‘eh…nah’. I can’t fire my core muscles like I want to and I was pretty exhausted after 30 minutes of the hour had passed. Also, has the room always been this hot? Lol. Every workout I do, every event I attend, every day of work is harder than it used to be. For a while, my life physically felt effortless. There wasn’t anything I didn’t think I could train my body to do. If I set a goal, I met it. But on the inside, my emotions were a mess. I was still hiding behind a mask that I didn’t even understand. I still had a lot of the same insecurities I’d started this whole journey with.

Through this recovery I’ve had my physical strength taken away. I had to have help with my socks for a few days. I had to use my arms to sit up and down for weeks. I didn’t sleep comfortably on my side for six weeks. I’m finally standing up straight and proud, almost walking at my normal pace. But through that time, my emotional strength has compounded. I’ve unpacked parts of myself I’ve ignored for a long time. The more I unpack the more grounded and peaceful I feel.

I know why everything I do is still hard. Logically I understand the science my body is experiencing. I’m still healing. I’m still regaining my mobility and stamina. I went from hyper mobile to sedentary overnight. My muscles and skin are still stitching their nerves back together. I understand what’s happening, but having patience with myself is different. Reminding myself in mid moment weakness is the hard part.

I know it’s shocking to hear that I haven’t always been kind to myself. There’s nothing anyone could think or say about me I haven’t thought about myself once or ten times. I get frustrated easily and overwhelmed. I’m generally impatient and have the least amount of patience for myself. But I’ve grown a lot this year. I’m starting to find peace in the silence. I’m starting to crack the code of my own anxiety.

This week, as much as I wanted not to, I listened to my body and not my brain. The second I started running again, my brain started to tell me to run more and keep running because it was the only way to feel better. I know this is crazy but running makes me feel comfortable and normal. Being a runner is something I love about myself and doing it gives me confidence. My brain tried to tell me I was weak for not trying to run harder and longer but my body knew better. Inversion in yoga is probably my favorite thing and Friday, I didn’t do it. I was tempted and disappointed when I knew I shouldn’t. Instead of feeling weak and having a pity party, I accepted where I was and accepted my body’s abilities with grace. It’s easy to be thankful for my new body but I’m still greedy to be where I was before. I want my physical body to make the same advancements as my emotional side lately. They are slowly aligning but I wish could force it. (See above……impatient!)

All of the discomfort and pain that I’ve felt physically in this recovery process has helped me grow emotionally. It’s in the hard moments that we grow the most. After the most amount of pain, we can find healing. The darkest moments are before the daybreak. The last snow before the most beautiful spring.

The key for me now is to keep doing workouts that do make me feel good. I can’t force motivation. I can’t force healing. I can’t force my body to do things it can’t do. I can control the forgiveness, understanding and grace I give myself through this time.

It’s been a while since I posted an update on my recovery only because I’ve been busy! When I’m not busy I’m napping. 🙂 Balancing work, rest and fun has still been difficult. I want to do all the things I used to do now that I’m ‘recovered’. Let’s talk about what recovered is actually looking like.

Before my surgery, I was deadlifting 185 pounds, squatting 135 and slinging around yellow 35 lb kettlebells for all my single arm and leg exercises. I’d been playing with the 80 pound atlas stone, regaining my handstand pushup and finally nailing crow pose in yoga. I was running 30-35 miles per week. Now…….oh boy. Today I was a little embarrassed to be in the weight room.

Today I used my body weight and a single PINK (18 lb) kettlebell in my workout. I haven’t moved anything over 45 lbs since surgery. I’ve run 1 single mile without stopping in almost seven weeks. I have a hard time in the prone position for more than 45 seconds. I thought being on full rest would be that hardest part, but this part? This is way harder. For some people the pink kettlebell is a goal. For me, it’s an embarrassment. I want to appear as strong as I was the day I left. While I still am in so many ways, my body just isn’t ready to do what I want it to do. At three months I should be doing everything I used to…….5 weeks go to.

Let’s talk more about my favorite subject: running. I became a runner in my old body, before I ever even hit my goal weight. I ran my first 5K in October 2014 for the Denver Fire Department. Since then, I’ve been hooked. I’ve completed 8 half marathons, dozens of obstacle races and hope to train for my first full marathon this year. I never knew what it was like to run in a normal body. When I ran, my stomach would hurt from bouncing up and down. Running shorts hold some things on normal bodies. Not mine. I could always feel my skin moving like some feel their breasts bouncing. Now when I run…..I don’t know what to do with my abs. I’ve never really thought about my abs when I ran. Now, I’m surprised how much I CAN’T feel moving around. Sometimes I touch my stomach when I run to make sure it’s still there. It’s the oddest feeling to know it’s normal now when it feels so abnormal. When I do a plank or push up now, my belly doesn’t touch the ground. Weird.

When I wake up in the morning, I never forget what I’m going to look like. I honestly can’t wait to look in the mirror. When I was obese, I never wanted to look in the mirror. When I was losing weight, I constantly struggled with what I looked like. I’d wake up in the morning and think I was still in my old body. When I’d touch my body, I didn’t like it. It felt wrong. Now when I touch my body, it feels right. Maybe in a way this is how transgender people feel? Might need to call a friend on that one……..

Anyway, everyday I wake up as myself now and I’m totally obsessed with me. I can’t wait to take progress photos each day. I’m buying a ton of clothes and constantly taking selfies. I love the way I look and the person I am now. I can feel all my parts aligning: my physical, spiritual and emotional self are coming together as one for the first time ever. I’ll never be the way I used to be. I’ll never be that person again.

I don’t want you to think I’m cured. I don’t ever want anyone reading this to think I got skinny, had some skin surgery and solved all my problems. This year I didn’t really lose or gain a single pound and yet I still fought some of my biggest demons. I had way more success than failure this year, yet I think it was my hardest. This year I found my courage. My courage to get the surgery, become who I really am and let others see me too. Stepping into who you really are can be quite painful when you’ve been hiding for so long. Growth is hard. Change is hard. But I promise on the other side there can be happiness. Across that finish line, there’s still more race to be run. Here’s to 2020. Let’s get going.

I gotta say. Every year when I wake up on January 1, I expect it to feel different than the day before. It feels like there should be a physical change in the atmosphere that marks the new year. The blank slate. Because the truth is: there is no difference. Nothing changes when the clock strikes midnight or 9:36 am. There’s no magic in the air the first week of the new year to give you motivation or drive towards your goals. Nothing changes overnight. Sometimes change doesn’t happen over weeks or months, but years.

I’m already tired of TV two days into 2020. If I have to see another Peloton or Jenny Craig commercial, I might throw my TV out all together. Yes, the new year is a great start date to get motivated and see how far you can get towards your goals before 2021. Everyone’s doing it! How long does that usual resolution last? 21 days. How long does it take to make something a habit? 66 days. So the chances of you actually sticking with your goal because you start right now? Slim to none.

So how do you actually do it?

Most people starting a weight loss journey want to dive right in. Buy all the books, order the special foods, join a gym, buy new shoes and get moving! Right? Wrong. If you are starting a journey this new year, I encourage you to take it slow. Make small changes over time, each day, each week till you start seeing progress. If you dive in deep now, you’ll get overwhelmed if results don’t match. In order to make lasting changes, you have to focus both on long term and immediate goals and successes. Let’s say you’re out to lose 50 pounds. That’s realistically going to take you six months. Have you ever worked towards a single goal, aligning every choice throughout your day for six straight months? Unlikely. But what if you had check points along the way? What if you started small and counted every victory in your journey and not just the end result? This is the way to make lasting changes.

My Dos and Don’ts for starting this whole process:

Do buy the books and new shoes. Get as excited as you want! Just keep in mind that things will go off track. You won’t lose 30 pounds this week and only buy clothes that fit you now. Get books that focus on behavior change and healing past trauma, NOT DIET BOOKS. Trust me on this one. While your diet probably needs improvement if you’re looking to lose weight, it’s not the only issue. You know how to eat healthy. The real question is, why haven’t you been treating yourself better?

Don’t order the food. Eat real food. If you’ve read this blog before you know I hate companies with packaged food and shakes because it’s not actually teaching you to feed yourself. I know Nutrisystem ‘worked’ for Marie Osmand but….SHE GETS PAID PEOPLE. If you’re dependent on any one company/product/food source, what would happen if it disappeared? Most people don’t have lasting weight loss on these programs because they fail to transition back to normal foods.

Don’t order an online health coach. Meet a real one. I’m so happy we have so much access to online fitness, health, and nutrition coaches. If you are in maintenance, I’d say go for it. But someone starting their journey needs hands on, real life, support. If you can’t pay for a trainer or specialized coaches, find friends that can help support you through your journey. That annoying girl that’s always trying to get the office to sign up for 5K’s? She’d be a great choice. No one coming from your journey will every judge you for where you are. Marathon runners understand how hard those first 5K’s are. Olympic weightlifters started with 10 pound dumbbells too. If you can find a coach or friend that has walked the walk, they will be nothing but supportive.

Don’t always workout alone. Meet new fit friends. I’ve met some of my best friends in the gym both at the beginning and end of my journey. It’s hard at first. It’s hard to put yourself on display. Go for group walks. Meet up for hikes. Make a fit community for yourself.

Do let others know you’re trying to make changes. Don’t depend on them to care. I mean this in the best way but, most people don’t give a crap that you’re on a diet. I lost friends as I changed my life. I’ve been unfriended on facebook when I post about running too much. I’ve lost touch with people who no longer fit my lifestyle. I’ve had to cut out toxic people that couldn’t accept changes in me when they couldn’t changes themselves. If you depend on the encouragement of others, you won’t develop the ability to motivate yourself. Don’t depend on the love from outside, find the love from within.