This is very personal and something I don’t really talk about…but as I’ve been reading the book Naturally Thin by Bethenny Frankel, I’ve been inspired to share my story–about my struggles with dieting, food, and my weight.
It goes WAY back…I’ve always been a really active kid, but I also really liked to eat. I never ate in moderation I just ate. This left me always a little bit chubby.
Freshman year of high school I was playing both basketball and volleyball after school and I guess I didn’t have as much time to eat, and I lost weight. When I came to club volleyball tryouts the coaches all took notice and said now I was an athlete and could jump because of all of the weight I lost.
Naturally, this led me down a path of not eating very much–I associated not eating with getting praise from my coaches.
As soon as the club season was over, I was back at it and gained weight again. This happened every single year of high school, and whenever I got back to club season I was put on a diet. I was weighed in weekly, had to come in early to do extra cardio, and was generally made to feel bad about myself. I remember one time getting so much crap from the head coach because he heard from another coach that I ate a cheeseburger at a tournament. So they all talked about my weight and what I was eating…great.
My senior year was the hardest of all. I was really singled out for my weight and diet by my coach. He created a special diet plan for me–that was extremely strict. I wasn’t allowed to eat dinner, just a protein shake after practice. There was a list of good and bad foods to eat. Eggs were bad, egg whites were good. Cereal was bad, oatmeal was good. Having this mentality of good and bad foods drilled into me at 17 stuck with me for a looooong time.
When I got to college I thought that if a food was good, I could eat however much of it I wanted, and I had to avoid bad foods like the plague. So naturally, combine that with drinking and I gained the freshman 30. I remember coming home over winter break and freaking out at my dad for making whole grain pancakes because he made them with one whole egg—what was he trying to make me fat?
I lost the weight my junior year, only because I had so much on my plate I forgot to eat and didn’t go out to drink anymore. I started getting compliments again on how good I looked and it made me feel great. When I got injured and wasn’t allowed to workout at ALL, I became very obsessive and ate little to compensate for the lack of exercise. I wasn’t going to get fat again! My coaches assumed I was bulimic and confronted my family about my ‘problem’. This definitely didn’t help my situation.
When I got pregnant, I had cravings for all of the foods that I wasn’t ‘allowed’ to eat since I was 16. I think that, coupled with my insane hunger led to my 65 pound weight gain.
So here I am, after YEARS of studying nutrition, weight loss, diets, exercise, and helping others get fit, trying to figure out the best way for ME to be happy, healthy, and at an ideal weight for my height. Since I gained so much weight when I was pregnant, I started counting every single calorie that I ate after TJ was born. Yes, it helped me lose 52 pounds in 3 and a half months…but as I started to read the book Naturally Thin by Bethenny Frankel, I couldn’t help but feel like I’m missing something. That I’m STILL unable to control my body.
So, now, my goal is to become more in tune with my body. To really sit down and listen. To eat real food–not just food that I know will help me lose weight. To eat when I’m only hungry and stop when I’m satisfied.
And to help others do the same.
I’m not perfect. I think a lot of people who follow me on Facebook think that I have everything together–I most certainly do not. I’m a work in progress–just like you. I’m learning to be the best that I can be, the healthiest that I can be, and to share that message with others.
