Loving Myself

[Flhomeschoolmom]

I wandered onto this site a few days ago, but spent over a month contemplating about coming to this website. I have hit a point in my life where I'm officially fed up with...well...myself. Society puts a lot of expectations on people pertaining to their body size and build, and this is especially true for women. For some reason, society does not want to accept (or accommodate for) the fact that we actually come all different shapes and sizes. And if you happen to be short, and also happen to be what is deemed "too skinny" then going shopping for clothes, undergarments, etc. becomes an absolute nightmare! This happens to be the category that I fall into, the category that I have spent my entire life (aside from my two pregnancies) in.

I have spent far too many years hearing and dealing with negativity pertaining to my body size and build. Negativity that began in adolescence and never really stopped aside from during my two pregnancies. I'm tired of hearing people tell me, "I'm sorry you lost your breasts" when I wear a T-shirt to support my MIL who had to have a double mastectomy. I am tired of wearing kids clothes, tired of store associates thinking that I'm shopping for undergarments for a young girl when I am shopping for myself...tired of hating my body and my build...tired of feeling unattractive.

Today is the start of learning to love the skin I live in. That means gaining both weight (some body fat) as well as some muscle and tone.

[Flhomeschoolmom]

Today isn't what I would honestly call a "good day" for me. Jeans that were a comfortable fit a week or two ago are now loose This means that I have lost weight...AGAIN! Sadly, my scales need a new battery because when I stepped on them to see how much I had unintentionally lost, the reading was "Low Bat" AHHHHHHHHHHH I swear that I need an old fashioned dial scale...unfortunately, we've not found one that registers over 300 lbs. so hubby doesn't want to buy one that can't read his weight. The current one will register up to 335, but hubby exceeded that and for several years got readings of "ERR". He is now on a Keto diet and doing pretty good, although after about a month he thinks he's not still loosing because the weight loss isn't as drastic as it was the first week when he lost a lot of fluid weight, etc.

As the mom and wife in my house, it is my "job" to keep everyone on a path that is in their best interest where meals are concerned. And, a family of 4 has a set food budget due to us having other bills that have to be paid like electricity, phone/internet, garbage disposal, etc. For an entire month, every meal I make has had to be Keto based and thus low carb. And that has put a serious strain on the monthly food budget...to the point that I know that part of my weight loss is due to cutting back my own portion sizes or completely eliminating some portions of various foods...like bacon. I absolutely LOVE bacon, and so does everyone else in my house and it IS friendly to my husband's Keto diet. However, one pack of bacon yielded enough that hubby got 4 pieces of bacon, each of my boys got 3 for bacon sandwiches, and that was it. I try not to say anything because my husband HAS to loose weight, he HAS to take some of the stress and strain off of his joints before he can get to a point where he can do things like walking and other physical activity. I was so proud of him at his last weigh in, he had lost 40 pounds! But now he's loosing his motivation to keep going and it's up to ME to keep him going despite the economic issues it's causing. I've not honestly figured out a way to help one person (preferably 2, but youngest son won't co-operate) loose weight, one person maintain weight, and one person gain weight using a meal plan that is pretty much Keto.

So, today I got up and broke down and cried due to the overwhelming stress while having my morning coffee. Loosing weight can be very dangerous for me and I know this, so that just adds fear to the stress I'm under. I sit here and question what I'm supposed to do and just how the heck I'm supposed to do it!

[Flhomeschoolmom]

Well, as of Tuesday hubby decided that he was fed up with Keto, so now he wants to try something else. I can't say that in my desire to gain weight that I dislike his idea of kicking the Keto diet, however I do hope that we can find a new way for him to drop the weight he needs to and regain more mobility

As for myself, I'm back to counting calories most days which I personally find very annoying but necessary. And I stopped counting calories last night with dinner because that just got too darn complicated to figure out how many calories were in my steak salad because that was a rather large steak... Ah well.

I had began some very basic upper body workouts, but those have to come to a halt for about a week or so thanks to seriously straining or pulling a muscle in/around my left shoulder yesterday while unloading groceries. For future reference, I'm not going to do an upper body workout (ie push ups, curls, etc) on days that I do major grocery shopping and have to lift bags from ground level to my porch to get them into my house. I honestly think that I seriously over did it because I have been in pain since early yesterday afternoon Thus, for the rest of this week (until Monday at least) I'm just going to eat and count calories aside from housework that HAS to be done (like laundry and dishes). But to say that this little set back isn't seriously frustrating would be a major lie.