How it came to this...

[ceekaye1]

I watch my 7-year old skipping around in the living room- i was just like that...happy, imaginative, active, and might have weighed 60 lbs soaking wet. Ages 8 thru 12 i remained a little "bottomless pit", eating everything i was given at dinner and asking for seconds, thirds...i was the kinda kid who'd rather have a leftover turkey sandwich over a piece of pumpkin pie. Even tho i ate my share of sweets, I liked real food.

So at that age of - AHEM - blossoming - i found myself much bigger than most of the girls...not in an overtly fat way, but just a big girl....my grandfather used to say built like a brick sh*t house...that was me! I was athletic - I liked playing softball and basketball, but found it tough to fit in with the dainty little flowers.

I wasn't lean and cut either - so like other girls my age, i became body conscious and wanted to do something to get a little more toned. I decided that i'd try lifting weights after school...that didn't go so well...i was majorly ridiculed and well, back in high school that was not a good position to be in. In general my peers were selfish, superficial and just well-rounded jerks, or they would never say anthing in defense of another lest the reprecussions (sh*t rolls downhill.) My self-esteem was impacted by this and a myriad of other dsyfunctional family-type experiences. and i just gave up on my self-image. Too damn bad i didn't realize that it was all nonsense when i was 15 or i probably wouldn't have abandoned what i thought was a good idea at that time.

But so it goes. Out of high school and into college: Life deals the cards, and sometimes the hand is not the best; or, you take a risk to get other cards, winding up worse off than what you started. Yeah, i hung out, drank and smoked and generally didn't give a sh*t about what i did or didn't do. My self-esteem was marginal.
Ironically i lost plenty of weight staying out at the club till 3am every nite, sparsely eating popcorn and quickie fast food between school and a job and partying. Soon i stopped college courses for lack of finances and maintained my job as a painter full-time for a couple of years, still partying and escaping from myself. ( i enjoyed the manual labor - i knew it would keep me in some kind of shape...)

By the time i came to my senses i was 23 - and then i was desparate to figure out how to get a life away from the one i knew and make something of myself.

I joined the Air Force in 92. Basic training was such a pain in the ass~living with 36 other girls (most of them younger than me to boot) was annoying to say the least. I went in weighing 123 pounds. 6 weeks into it i was up to 135, and by the time i hit technical school i was 145 pounds plus. From that time on to this day i have never weighed less.

Of course through the years i'd attempted to change, but always with a flawed approach. Along with the majority of Americans i fell victim to what "they" said was an effective quick way to get lean. All the diet crazes out there...more than 7300 diet books listed alone on Amazon dot com....no wonder no one it's tough for the masses to understand what works.

But my excuse hasn't been dietary misguidance...no. It's been mindset. Being married with a husband and a child i continued the bad habit of putting myself last. How badly did i want it? More and more the feelings built up; i've wanted it badly enough that for the last 2 years i've been searching, digging, into myself to figure it out.

Then it came to me - it's my own doubt and negative self-talk that has prevented me from getting there. So now, finally i have found my way, and am forming a vision.
I will not stop what i am doing...i will not eat crap, i will work out 6 out of 7 days per week.
I cannot wait until the last bits of fat are incinerated from my frame~ I make that impatience work for me: It gives me the needed push to work out when i don't feel like it; to give my all to that last raising and lowering of the weight.
I keep positive pressure on myself by keeping a daily blog.
I joined BodySpace for support from like-minded people and so i won't have to go thru it alone.
I practice imagining my body in its best phyical condition ever.
I imagine my 7-year old, myself playing and skipping around in the living room.