My Weight and Me

So… I’m fat.

And not in a chubby ‘Oh my gawd I’m so fat XD’ way. To be blunt; I’m obese.

And I have been for a while. I’ve been chubby and bigger than most for my whole life. And for as long as I’ve been chubby, I’ve hated my body which has lead me to not doing things or wearing things for fear of ridicule. It’s also been a cause of deep anxiety for me for years. So I’m fat, what I’m not, however, is inactive; I may be a bit lazy but all through my life I’ve been exercising on some form or another. I swam semi competitively starting at 3 until I was 15, and I danced from 3-14 in many styles; often doing two to four classes a week. And when I quit those I was doing movement at college and working out sporadically when I got a chance. And my main mode of transport is my feet. I walk everywhere! I love walking, listening to music, lost in my own world. (Coincidentally, walking is when I take most of my photos of nature or architecture that I use on this blog and my Instagram.) But I’ve steadily been getting bigger and bigger. This is in part due to my binge eating and mental health (which I will go into on separate blog posts in the future) but it’s also just the way my body is. I wasn’t blessed with a fast metabolism or an inherent need to move; and I am painfully bad at self-motivation.

I reached 19 and a half stone in mid 2015, and since then I’ve swung up and down between 19 and 19.5 stone ever since. And since starting my gap year I was less motivated to exercise; especially when I was working in a bar – since I was walking around all shift I thought this was enough and forgot about my food intake and what that meant for my body. Luckily in February of this year I was still at 19.5 stone. I say luckily because it could be a lot worse.

What I think you should also know is that I have tried dieting and exercise a million and one times. I went to 'Slimming World' with my mum when I started secondary school, I’ve gone through months of going to the gym once a week regularly, and in February ’16 I even went every weekday for two weeks. A first for me. It seems each time I tried to get rid of the weight, I failed. So I gave up. This was around the same time my mental health plummeted. At this time there seemed to be no light at the end of the tunnel.

Someone I know who lost a lot of weight once told me;

‘It wasn’t until I loved myself that I could lose the weight’

I never related to that, never knowing what truly loving myself entailed and never having lost weight properly. But I think I’m getting there.

Because on the 20^th of January this year I went to the gym. And I didn’t quit. I haven’t given up. Even though I’ve not lost much yet or seen many changes I still go 3-5 times a week. Yes I’ve had two or three weeks where I just didn’t go, and some days I’ve gone in and left after half an hour. But I kept it up.

For me this is a massive achievement because I am very good quitting or finding excuses not to do things. But after 24 weeks I’m finally seeing the weight slowly drop. I also feel so much happier, not all the time, but I do more things and spend less time wasting my life online or feeling sorry for myself. I’m starting to treat my body with more respect, I think more about what I put into it and how it affects me. I’ve learnt to not be so hard on myself, and to take off some of the pressures to be perfect I have inflicted on myself. I’m learning self love slowly, it’s not perfect but its more than I imagined I’d ever achieve.

I’m always hesitant to tell people when I lose weight or make a change because I usually quit soon after. But I feel like I can safely say I’m now so adjusted to getting up and walking to the gym that I won’t be quitting any time soon.

So, as I’m so motivated I want to start writing about my progress, not every week, but often enough to share my progress and what I’m doing and trying -  if only to have something look back on and show how far I’ve come. I also want to write about body confidence and being ok with yourself at any size. I would preface this however by saying I’m not a professional nutritionist or trainer so what I write about shouldn’t be taken as the only truth, many different things work for different people and that’s perfectly ok. But expect to see more posts in this series.

Thank you for reading, if you have ever struggled with your weight or had problems with body confidence; please let me know in the comments. Or if you have any ideas for a name for this series let me know! I hope you are having an awesome day;

TTFN