My New Resolution

Hello everyone. The countdown is getting closer to when my life journey is set to begin. To recap, I would like to achieve the following for 2019:

• Lose weight and be healthy
• Create a budget ( save money and get out of debt)
• Love myself- be selfish

Sounds easy enough right? Well like any great thinker, here I am devising a plan to maximize my chances to success with my above goals. Also, writing this down gives you more insight in me as a person and why I want to achieve these goals. Today, I am going to concentrate this entry on my first goal which is: lose weight and be healthy.

I have always been a chubby kid when I was young. I got laughed at and ridiculed and was always self-conscious being around others. What didn’t help my condition was when I was 14 years old—I was diagnosed with IBS (Irritable Bowel syndrome). What would happen was that I would get sick after every meal with horrible stomach pains. To avoid my symptoms, I became a meal skipper. Why skip meals? It was for me to control the amount of pain I would get when I had food. I would normally eat one meal a day and my record was eating one meal in a three day period. Let me tell you, when you do this for as long as I did, it becomes a defense mechanism. I would not say I was anorexic because by looking at me, you wouldn’t see it. Still, I knew I had an issue with food consumption. And yes, the times I did eat, it wasn’t always healthy. The way I saw it was that my stomach would hurt no matter what I ate, so screw it right?

This way of eating sustained me for a long time. When life would be hard, crazy and uncontrollable, I had the control with my meal skipping. It may sound crazy but since my body was so used to it, I rarely felt the hunger that other people had. In my late 20s, I hated the way I looked and decided that I wanted to change. I joined a woman’s gym and went regularly. I was also matched up with a dietitian who gave me a diet to follow. I wrote a diet diary documenting food I would try and what was its affect to my stomach. I learned that I could eat some food and not be curled into a ball in tears after eating. It truly was a breakthrough. So I started a diet where I would eat three-to-five times a day, small portions. Between me and you, it was more food I would normally eat in a day and I thought it would make me gain weight. Crazy thing is that it didn’t. It made my metabolism go faster and burned the amount of calories I would intake. The other consequence was that I finally understood what it meant being hungry. When your body is used to not eating and then you show it you will eat three times a day, you being late for schedule feeding made your body react by being hungry. Your stomach rumbles and you get antsy because you want food. I hate that feeling. I hate being a slave to my body’s need, especially since I was the one that had control over it before.

Still, I made it work for two years. I prepped my food in advance, had my food schedule to eat at the same times, exercised regularly and I lost over 100 pounds in nine months. I felt great. I had energy, walked with my head held high was healthy. Don’t worry, I wasn’t what I would call a ‘’skinny bitch’’ size two but a size 10 but for me that was what I wanted.

As you have deduced, I gained back my weight. A lot of factors contributed to that. I met someone, put my needs aside to be with them and lost my drive and myself. Life got crazy and out of control again and I went to my old defense mechanism and started skipping meals. I felt that I couldn’t control what was going around in my life but I could control my body over food and I regained the weight. I also got pregnant and had a little one, and then my excuse was that I had no time to do what I wanted. There were time I did attempt to regain my drive and purpose but meal prepping and exercising but the smallest hiccup or bump in the road made me fall of the wagon and then I didn’t even wanted to bother and try. Then 2018 happened and my life got flipped upside down. I got separated from husband, became a single mom and sole provider and realized how far I have fallen that I didn’t even recognize myself when I looked at the mirror.

I decided it was time to pick myself up and do this because I was unhappy for what I realized was a long time. In October, I started meal prepping again, bought an elliptical machine and starting using it daily. After two weeks I lost five pounds and I felt great. Like clockwork, when you have a plan to improve yourself, obstacles will happen right. For me it was falling down bus stairs and breaking my leg. Yes you can laugh. Un-freaking- believable right? Being angry can’t even described how I felt about it. I had to have emergency surgery and was told that I could not put any weight on my leg for two months. Good news is that I saw the doctor two weeks ago and things look good and I might be able to start exercising soon.

So I guess this is why this journal, this 2019 resolution, is so important for me. 2018 was a horrible year. Still, it made me realize things about myself. There are a lot of events and things I can’t change and being angry will not change it. What I can do it concentrate on things I can do and the change I want and I really want this. I am putting my foot down to life. I won’t let anyone or anything take thing drive away from me.