Beautiful Before

May 2009.  My notorious "before" picture. 

If you've followed my weight loss journey throughout the years, you've probably seen me post this picture.  It's my go to "before" picture.  Taken in 2009.  I've shared it LOTS of times to show "how far I've come" and to show off the huge "accomplishments" I had achieved by losing weight.  

Today, you get the REAL story.  The story I think I always knew I was living, but never wanted to face.  The story I never wanted anyone to know. 

Let's start with that picture...
I hated myself.  I hated my big legs, my big butt, my tummy, my arms, my face.  Everything. Nothing but hate.  

What you may have forgotten, or not known, about this picture...
I was pregnant.  

It was our second pregnancy, which would, about a week after this photo, end in our second miscarriage.  

What I am realizing, looking back, is that there was so much more to "fix" than fat.  So many things that were much more important to focus on than my pant size.  I was depressed.  I had anxiety.  I didn't want to uncover that.  I didn't want to deal with my grief head on.  So instead, I decided to "fix myself" by losing weight.  

I hadn't always been fat.  I was actually a pretty skinny kid.  I grew up with a very healthy relationship with food.  Mom was an amazing cook, always served our meals family style, and always made sure our meals were colorful.  She didn't push veggies or fruits, but they were always there as a part of the color.  I enjoyed eating and have wonderful memories and emotional ties to eating my mom's cooking.  

My dad died when I was 19 and I never sought counseling.  Man, if I could only go back and do that over, I would. Instead, I dealt with it the best way I knew how.  I dove back into school work and I ate.  I ended up turning to excessive drinking and other destructive behaviors for a while.  My senior year, my magical childhood metabolism disappeared, and I gained a decent amount of weight.

My perfectionistic personality and anxiety took over, and I decided I needed to fit a societal "norm" of being skinny.  So I joined Weight Watchers.  I lost some weight, but not a lot, and quit.  I started teaching, and wow that first year as a teacher is incredibly anxiety-provoking and lonely, especially when you move to a town where you know NOBODY.  I met some wonderful friends who helped me adopt some healthier behaviors (like drinking water and enjoying movement ;) ).  I also decided to join Weight Watchers again.  

I did well for a while and quit again.  Fast forward to 2009 and 2 miscarriages in that picture above.  I was now the heaviest I had ever been - 215 pounds.  I blamed the miscarriages on my weight.  My doctor never ONCE mentioned my weight as a concern or a cause for our issues, but I was sure it was a part of it.  And let's face it, folks.  Attacking my weight was much easier than diving into my actual emotional issues of anxiety and repressed grief.

By January 2010, I was at goal weight, down 66 pounds.  I was finally happy, right?!  

Man, I wish.  Wrong. 

I wanted more.  I wanted to be smaller.  So I lost more and more and more weight.  I got down to 131 pounds (which was NOT healthy by any stretch of the imagination) and still didn't see myself as good enough.  Under the skinny exterior, I still dealt with anxiety, depression, and grief.  

We got pregnant about a year after that photo was taken in June 2010, and of course, that just proved me right - the weight had been the problem.  We had our first successful pregnancy because I was finally at the "right" weight.  

During my pregnancy, I ate everything in sight.  I often had multiple packs of oreos and several boxes of cereal in the house.  I ate ice cream as often as I could.  Not because I was careless.  Not because I didn't care about my health or the health of my baby.  I know now, looking back, that I had been finally set free to EAT.  It was like I had been stuck in a gated area for months (no, years) and finally let out to pasture to graze.  I ate and ate and ate and ate because - I knew it wouldn't last.  I knew that as soon as I delivered this baby, I would be back to a diet.  I would restrict again.  I would take these foods away.  They weren't around forever.  So I overate them for 40 weeks.  I gained 65 pounds.  I was horrifically embarrassed about the weight I gained during my pregnancy and didn't tell a soul.

When Kate was born, I lost it all.  Back to the 130s.  Now, I was Super Mom.  I had a baby, I breastfed, and I lost weight.  Hear me roar.

I did it by restricting myself to the point of malnourishment.  I over-exercised to the point of exhaustion.  And folks, it still wasn't enough.  I still hadn't achieved the ultimate happiness and satisfaction in life I had been seeking.

We got pregnant again in 2013 as I was finishing my Master's degree (I was just pregnant with Kate when I started the program), and a couple months after I was hooded, I delivered another beautiful baby, Megan.  I had gained about 15-20 pounds before I got pregnant, and gained about 40-45 while pregnant.  Again, overeating the "no-no" foods I had been restricting the last 3 years.  

We got pregnant with Damon very quickly, so I never went back on the diet between babies.  Just ate, breastfed, and snuggled.  But I still wasn't free.  The diet mentality was still there, waiting in the background.  Waiting for when I would start again.  Overeating all my "off limits" foods.  

Now I was a mama of 3.  And couldn't lose weight.  Anxiety was at an all-time high, and we were about to add a lot more stress.  Looking for a new job, applying, driving, getting hired, moving super quickly into my MIL's house, trying to sell, trying to buy, and moving again.  And Super Mom no more, I told myself.  Because here I am with 3 kids, my youngest is 16 months old, and I still have baby weight.  I was doing 21 Day Fix, paleo, and cleanses to try to get myself "back on track".  Paired with overeating because even though they weren't working, I knew the diet was coming back.  

November 2016 I joined Weight Watchers again.  It was always my tried and true plan. I lost all the baby weight - so now, Super Mom once again, right?  Happy at last, right?  Nope.  Still not good enough.  Can't run fast enough.  Not exercising enough.  Stomach not flat enough.  Legs not small enough.  Arms not muscly enough.  Always seeing someone I wanted to be more like - someone who was better at this than me.  

When I started this time, I jumped on WW the way I always had.  Using every sugar free, fat free option I could find.  Then I started reading labels and realized they have to put a whole lot of other chemically stuff in those foods to make them edible when they take those things out.  So I started to try to make WW more "clean" for me, which seemed like a good thing at the time.  But it got very ugly very fast and gave me a new and even more restrictive way to eat.  Follow the points, but do it CLEANLY.  I then started counting macros on My Fitness Pal IN ADDITION to tracking my "clean" food with WW.  I had to get my macros perfect (so a perfect balance of carbs, protein, and fat in every day) and it sent my restriction to an all new level.  Made me feel super in control, when nothing was further from the truth.  I would find myself succumbing to binges, which were always followed with horrific guilt and shame.

At this time, I had started interacting a lot with my friend, Charity.  She was a person I was constantly using to compare myself against.  BeachBody coach and fitness goddess.  She was always working out more than me and I couldn't ever keep up.  

Then, all of a sudden, her posts changed.  No more focus on getting thin.  She was still working out, but she wasn't posting about carbs and macros.  She was talking about loving her body (well, who wouldn't?!  LOOK AT HER.  Duh.), but she was talking about...not dieting anymore. (For the record, most of us don't call it "dieting", because that's become a taboo word.  So we call it a "meal plan" or a "nutrition plan" or "paleo" or "keto" or...but let's face it, folks.  It's restriction to lose weight.  It's a diet.)

WHAT?!

I was mad.  Guys, really and truly angry.  How could she do this to me?  How could she abandon me on this journey?  I needed her.  I wanted to stop reading her posts, but I couldn't.  I had grown to admire her so much for her dedication to losing weight, keeping it off, getting stronger, etc., and I had to see what in the hell she was doing.  So I kept reading.  Each post nagging a little more into my brain.  Each post shedding a little more light on what she was doing.  Each post making me wonder if this was a better solution than what I had been doing for years and years and years.  Well, what happened has changed me.  

(My last blog post talks a lot about the truth behind diet culture and what I am planning my future to look like.  You can read it here.  I would really love to hear your thoughts!)

What if, in 2009, I had someone tell me to love myself?  As I was?  What if someone told me that EVERY BODY is beautiful.  Every BODY is amazing.  As it is. Not every THIN body, but EVERY body.  What if I had sought counseling when my dad died in 2001?  What if I had sought counseling after my miscarriages?  What if I had uncovered the emotions under the fat?  What if I had learned to move and eat intuitively?

I think I would probably have still lost some weight, because I wasn't moving at all then, nor was I eating intuitively. I was just on a constant cycle of restricting and binging.  But regardless, I would have LOVED MYSELF.  I would have been free of this prison that has confined me for the last 14 years.  FREE.  

That before picture - she's beautiful.  She was beautiful BEFORE.  It's still hard for me to see some days, because I've been brainwashed for years to believe that a thin body is the only good body, but she's beautiful.  She's not a before.  She's a person.  She's real in that moment, but she didn't feel like she was worth loving.  She was waiting to live until she lost weight, but she was worth living THEN.  

Beautiful BEFORE.

And now, I'm learning what beautiful is AFTER.  And it has nothing to do with pant size or a number on the scale.  After may end up being bigger than I am now.  There is a set-point my body wants me to find, and I'm learning to let it find it.  Learning through pitfalls.  Breaking through years of diet mentality and societal pressures that are complete crap. Learning to eat and repair my relationship with food.  Learning to love food again with no restriction, no guilt, no shame.  Still learning.  Still learning to love my body.  My beautiful body.  

Beautiful BEFORE.

and

Beautiful NOW.

Choosing to put this picture at the end, because it can't be used as an "after" in comparison to the "before" above.  It's just a Mama with her super dirty kid.  And in this picture, I'm happy.  I'm free.  Feels amazing.