Part One: From Trash Can to Temple.

Let’s get serious for a moment, shall we?  For all of us, there are times when you treat your body like a temple and then five minutes later you treat it like a trash can.  If you have seen any of my pictures from the last year or so (if you haven’t are we even friends?) you’ll know that I recently lost a pretty significant amount of weight.  

We all have our struggles in life, right?  Well, mine is one of those that people can literally see me struggle with.  Many pounds ago, it was very difficult for me to understand that as human beings we all go through sh*t.  Sometimes it’s visible and sometimes it’s not.  The big mistake I made before coming to this realization was that I used to spend a lot of time comparing myself to others.  Wondering why all my friends could eat whatever they wanted and not gain a pound, while I was a fairly athletic girl who did not have the same luxury.  Now, having matured (a little anyway) I understand two very crucial things.  A.) Life isn’t fair.  B.) My weight is my issue, and I need to deal with the reality of it.

I must say I somehow got really lucky, for many reasons, but specifically when it comes to self-image.  Although I was never the skinniest girl at the party, I never saw myself for a BG the way that others may have.  (Side note, some of my girlfriends and I call ourselves BG’s, or “big girls,” in the most self-loving way, but it mainly means that we’d choose French fries over a martini ANY day of the week).   Anyway, self-love.  Never something I’ve lacked.  The one bad thing about it was how long it prevented me from deciding I needed to make some changes in my life surrounding my weight and how I treat my body.  I was needing less of the trash can diet and more of the “your body is a temple” lifestyle, and quickly I might add.

Here’s the problem.  Does anyone else go through life with an all or nothing attitude?  When I do something, I refuse to half a** it.  At work, at the gym, on a friend’s birthday gift, on my hair (LOL) I’m an all or nothing kind of person.  How that translated into my new lifestyle change was extreme.  Not only did I immediately clean my apartment, my office, and my car of all unhealthy foods, I became so incredibly strict with my diet.  I tried to limit eating take out altogether which meant cutting down my social time with friends because temptation is hard and I wasn’t willing to lose the fight.  One of my best gal pals always says to me, willpower is a muscle, you have to exercise it.  She couldn’t be more right.  I had to constantly say no which was really challenging in the beginning, but over time people stopped asking me to go out to eat with them and in turn the results I was seeing proved to be more motivation than anything else.  When you can tell your hard work is paying off, you keep going, and it gets easier to be strict because anytime you’d rather eat a glazed donut ice cream sandwich (YES THAT IS A REAL THING, sorry for yelling but it just opened in my neighborhood and is still really hard to drive past everyday) your results remind you to keep pushing for your goals.  It’s worth mentioning that with all my success, I was being much less social in order to avoid any and all temptation, spending every possible moment that my body would allow me to at the gym, and being completely obsessive with carb counting.  Biggest downside of these not so great lifestyle habits?  I was learning to see all foods only as carbs and not necessarily the overall nutrition that it provides.  Also, my social life may have suffered, even if only temporarily.  Again, I’ll talk more about all this fun stuff soon, just trying to give you an idea of the crazy person that I was...okay am.

Part of having this all or nothing attitude is my mental game.  I am very much the type of person that doesn’t want to eat healthy when she doesn’t work out.  WARNING: THIS IS WRONG.  After spending an hour or more kicking butt in the gym, the desire to destroy that hard work on a pizza is non-existent.  However, if I don’t workout, it feels like a cheat day  and therefore I eat ALL the cheat meals.  Currently working on fixing this and finding that healthy balance, but lifestyle changes are hard people, give me a minute… or two.

If you’ve worked your ass off to lose weight or just become healthier, way to freaking go.  I am currently standing and clapping on my balcony (alone) for you because you deserve it.  Okay I’m not, I’m sitting on my bed, with no bra on, writing this post but I’m totally clapping.  When you make health a priority in your life every day, sometimes every hour presents a new challenge for you to overcome and you’re doing the damn thing, so be proud of the work you’ve done.  I want to make sure that people hear that.  When you’ve never struggled with weight in your life there tends to be a misconception that for others it’s as easy to lose weight as it is to gain, WRONG.  Gaining weight (non-healthy weight) is easy.  It requires no planning, no will power, and you get to say yes to everything.  Losing weight requires planning, will power that you never knew you had, and hard work.  So again, if you’ve gone through this, are going through this, or are considering going through this, good for you.  If you need some support, let me know, I’ve got your back!

This post is already too long so I’m breaking up this lifestyle journey blog into three parts. Part One: you made it through, congrats.  Part Two: up next, all about how I’m low key addicted to working out now thanks to the Psycho Gym (you did read correctly, it’s actually called that). Part Three: The now.  Stay tuned!  Until then, BYEEEEEE.

Photos courtesy of Shannon Rae Wright Photography.