Full of Hope

As the title of this blog post suggests, I am full of hope and excitement. I know that this time around I will reach and maintain my goal. I'm so proud of myself. Several months ago I was caged in a horrible excuse for a relationship; engaged to a man that had absolutely no love or respect for me. Even if he lied at times to create the illusion of love, to be in that situation and be so blind, it's clear that I had very little love and respect for myself. When I found out about all of his lies, it tore me apart. I sought revenge, but it didn't ease my sorrows. I banished that abusive man from my life and put him in jail where he belonged. He was gone and I was better off, but behind my smile I was dying inside. The level of his deceit was just off the charts and everything he'd ever done and said to me came flooding into my mind over and over. Some day it will be in a book, but not one I can write now. At the time I also had a very psychologically stressful job in a long-term residential treatment home for children from various traumatic backgrounds. The days were so long I measured them by mealtimes and could never wait to eat. I wanted to get back home so I could go to bed and wallow in self-pity. I was already around 200 pounds. One week he'd say he liked arm candy and the next week he'd think my butt was getting too small, so my weight was yo-yoing and every time it went down, it went higher than it was before. Between the stress and deep depression I was sinking into, my emotional eating was spinning out of control and I was up to 215 pounds.

I never thought that I would be over 200... but it happened. I was disgusted with myself, but felt that I would never get down to where I should medically be. I had pretty much given up on myself. It didn't help that people would say that I was beautiful and that some people are just mean to be bigger. Eventually, though, I got sick of people telling me how well I wore my weight.

There are three different body types. I am a mesomorph. I have an hourglass figure and tend to gain and lose proportionately. You might have noticed from my last posting that I have lost just about the same amount (2") off of every part of my body except for my calves. My calves were already very lean. This does not change the fact that I am obese (but very close to entering the overweight BMI zone)! That's still a lot of weight that I was carrying around. Since starting this blog I have lost almost 50 pounds. I used to groan like an old lady when getting up. I still do, but now it's only out of habit, not out of strain. I had difficulty breathing sometimes, even if I was being sedentary. Every movement felt like work. I had no energy. I was only 22 and I FELT 32.

Having now lost 15% of my weight and sneaking up on 20%... I feel amazing. I am already reaping the benefits of my new healthy lifestyle and I can't wait to experience the others that await me. These are supposed to be the best years of my life. Albeit I wasted one of them on a loser, but now I have healed and am on my way to being a healthy, athletic 20-something.

By the way... my mom pointed out tonight that I am almost HALFWAY to my goal.