Acceptance

It has taken me almost 21 years to fully realize that I have always had a dependence on food. My dependence on food goes back many years. I can remember eating donuts late at night then going to bed, snacking on "junk foods" throughout the day or eating the large meals at fast food restaurants.

Growing up, I saw nothing wrong with that. After all, I was changing with the times. The meals were getting larger and less healthy and so was I. My pediatrician was always nice when I went in for a check-up. She would show me the chart and tell me, "this is the weight you should be (pointing to a curve on a graph), but this is the weight you are (pointing to a dot no where near that ideal curve).

I would be lying if I said that didn't bother me. To know that I was so much heavier than what I should be at such a young age (then so much heavier meant about 20 to 30 pounds) was hurtful, but my mom stuck by my side and told me that we would start to do things differently. That worked for awhile until I started making my own food choices.

Things did start to turn around when I was a freshman in high school and joined the marching band. In less than 4 months I had dropped 20 pounds. Why? Because for once, I was finally burning more calories than I was taking in (especially with marching in the heat). Instead of embracing this, I used it as a crutch. During the "off season" (non marching season) I would go back to my old eating habits, but tell myself that I would lose the weight when marching season started back up. That wasn't always the case. As my body got used to the exercise it was tougher for me to drop the weight, but it certainly wasn't tougher for me to gain the weight.

During high school my weight fluctuated. I would lose weight during marching season, gain weight during the holidays and lose weight when softball season started. By the time I graduated high school my body had become used to this pattern and it was hard for me to lose any weight at all. I told myself that my freshman year in college would be different because I didn't want to be part of the "freshman 15", instead I was part of the freshman 7.

I was shocked to know that during my freshman year in college I only gained 7 pounds, especially since I was eating ice cream every night and eating from a local Italian restaurant and / or McDonald's once a week. Again, I made an empty promise to myself that during my sophomore year things would change. Instead I was eating more because I had transferred colleges and was back home and grabbing meals whenever I thought I was hungry (turns out I was just bored or tempted with the food).

Last year, 2012, I started to track what I was eating with the Lose It! app. It was highly successful and I ended up losing around 25 pounds within the first 4 months because I was watching the foods that I was eating and taking better care of my body. When I stopped tracking my foods in May, because I thought I had a grip on things, the weight started coming back and by the end of 2012 I was back up another 30 pounds, essentially gaining the weight I had once lost in the beginning of the year plus an additional 5 pounds!

Now that I am in my junior year of college (second semester) I am determined that this will be my year of change (see earlier post with same title). I have started watching what I eat again (started using Lost It! again) and have been incorporating Zumba, walking and visits to the gym (time in the gym ranges anywhere from 30 to 45 minutes to start out with, then I plan on increasing that time to an hour).

Although I have only been back on this journey, that is what I like to call it because it is a journey, for a couple weeks I know I will go through many high and low points until reaching that ultimate goal; but for now, I am feeling better about myself. Taking it slowly is really helping me start to accept the things that I need to change.

Today I actually told me mom, "I love going to the gym," that is something that I would have never said a few years ago, but it is something that I am glad to say now. I know that this will not be an easy journey but I know that the results will be worth the "weight" (get it, weight instead of wait -- hahaha).

My body is telling me that I need to change and I am finally accepting that.