Take it from me

I was going to devout this post to the anxiety I have about moving and the fact that we don't know yet and yada yadda. However, my morning to a turn to bigger things than that. Literally!

Those of you who are close know that I struggle with self image immensely. I always have. I say negative things about my body a good 5,000 times a day, just ask my husband. Man do I wish I could go back to when i thought I was fat 8 year ago. Really, it needs to stop.

In college I gained a lot more weight that I wanted to. I didn't eat healthy, I worked out when i felt like it and my body totally suffered. The scale just kept going up. The two years I taught in Maryland and was living at home I seemed to settle out a bit and was pretty comfortable with how I looked.

I got married and found myself pregnant 3 months later with a husband who was in Afghanistan and I was working full time. Que, very very very poor eating habits. I'm talking french toast sticks, tostino pizza rolls, and cereal. I mean, I even set the kitchen a blaze while I was trying to eat semi healthy. I totally gave up after that. Then I found myself with my husband who had been shot and we lived in a hospital setting for 9 months. Here's where things got silly. AFTER I had Jameson I weighed almost 300lbs. We're talking HUGE! and the sad part, i did it to myself. When i have a long period of stress I eat and don't work out. I hit quite a few rock bottoms while Jimmy was in the hospital and we moved back to Louisiana. Were talking, imagining what it would be like to cut your own fat off type rock bottoms. a place a girl should never go, rock bottom.

I finally was on the straight and narrow and after a lot of blood, sweat, and tears (pretty sure i cried my fat off somedays), I made it down to 200lbs. Then I found out I was pregnant again. The joys of being pregnant were overwhelming, however, my weight was in the forefront of my mind the WHOLE time. I cried a few days over the fact that I was going to gain weight. With a very dedicated and loving husband we made sure this time was different. I worked out (not too often but often enough) and ate relatively healthy and only gained about 25lbs. Luckily for me, I have the best and most supportive husband in the world and I am below 200lbs and it just keeps coming off. A lot of sweat and tears  (not as many tears as last time) and dedication I am doing it. This brings me to something that really hit hard this morning (literally).

I was at the gym and I was in the ZONE. I had just finished running 30 min without stoping. I had glanced up at the clock on the wall to see what time it was since I knew Mollie was going to eat soon. As my eyes were coming back to my treadmill, I noticed the girl next to me. Something was different. Her eyes had rolled to the back of her head.. in slow motion i saw her head hit the arm rail on the side. I jumped off my treadmill and went to hit here emergency stop button. Her whole body, like a limp fish, hit the treadmill as it was still moving and flew back to the wall. Luckily I stopped it as her head was still stuck on it because she was a very tall girl and there was no more room between the treadmill and the wall. I held her head in my hands to get her neck into a straight position. She finally woke up, totally embarrassed and had not a clue as to what had happened. I explained to her that she must have passed out while actively running and then told her a series of events. She had the black from the treadmill from her forehead down her cheek to her neck all the way down her arm. I asked her if she had eaten anything for breakfast and she said "no, I'm trying to lose weight".

Wow, that was a powerful statement to me. Thank you ma'am for saying that. I'm sorry you are going to be so very sore tomorrow but please know you hit me like a ton of bricks like that. I want more than anything to be quite a few sizes smaller but not so badly I want to do more harm then good to my body. I will stop saying negative things about myself because I do not want to do more harm then good to my body. I will work out to be fit and be healthy for my children and husband and myself. But not to the extent that I will harm myself by not eating and running my body into the ground (literally).