Getting healthy: The struggle is real.

Bonjour, beauties! I hope all of you are doing well and wonderful, and I want to wish a very happy Mother’s Day to all the mothers out there! It’s not an easy job, but somebody has to do it! I hope your little ones (or grown ones) have managed to put a smile on your face today. 🙂

It’s been a while since my last *real* post and I’ve been sort of struggling with what to write about since the majority of my makeup still has yet to be unpacked and I still don’t have my vanity set up for photos (yeah, pure laziness). But today, I’m going to talk about a topic that’s been bothering me for some time now, something I’ve been struggling with for a couple of years – my weight gain and the struggle to get healthy.

I’ve been wanting to write about this for a while, but I guess I just wasn’t ready yet. It’s still not something I’m completely comfortable talking about, but the fact is it’s a problem in my life and I can’t ignore it. I figured I could share this with all of you.

I’m not going to go in-depth about obesity rates and unhealthy living because I’m not an expert. All I know (as I think we all do) is that it’s a widespread problem that people everywhere are struggling with. I’ve struggled with my weight before, this isn’t the first time. I’ve never been a super *skinny* girl, except during my early childhood years. Never had a high metabolism. I need to keep a very close eye on what I eat if I want to maintain my weight. During the ages of 17-19 I gained quite a lot of weight and then ended up losing it all and then some – 40 pounds, to be exact. That was the thinnest I had every been in my adult-life. I would give anything to be back to that weight again. I was healthy, at least weight-wise. Since then, my weight has fluctuated up and down, mostly up, but not to an unhealthy level – and not enough to where I was super bothered by it. I was comfortable with myself.

Fast forward to a couple of years ago, where soon after getting married, I started to balloon. I became quite comfortable with marriage quite quickly and had no motivation to work out. Well, every little (or large in my case) bit of food adds up and I’m now 70 pounds overweight, the largest I’ve ever been in my entire life. I feel so many feelings; ashamed, embarrassed, disgusted… I can’t stand looking at myself in the mirror because it’s a constant reminder of what I’ve let myself become. When I say this, I mean it. I am not comfortable in any way with my weight, I don’t feel like I could live the rest of my life like this, it’s just not worth it to me to feel this way. And it’s not good for my health. Yet after every attempt to start working out and eating healthy, I’ve failed. Every. Single. Attempt. There have been several failed attempts to lose weight over the past couple of years. I would think that with being so disappointed and disgusted with my looks and my health, thinking about it constantly, I’d finally make a change once and for all, but I don’t. When someone is unhappy with something in their life, they fix it. I feel like I can’t. I cannot push myself, I cannot get motivated enough, I ALWAYS give up. No matter how much I hate my body, I couldn’t be more unmotivated. I fail every single time. Why? It doesn’t make any sense.

I know I’ve mainly been talking about my weight, but what concerns me even more this time around is my health. I had a serious health issue last year (completely unrelated to my weight struggle, but somehow I feel like it contributed to it) and even though it’s resolved now, because of it, I really need to stay as healthy as possible. I’ve been doing the complete opposite. I can’t tell you why. No matter how concerned I am that the issue could come back, no matter how many days I’ve said to myself, “I really need to exercise today” I just don’t do it. And then I get upset that I wasted time NOT doing it, so I eat… and eat… and eat. I tell myself, “I’ll start tomorrow, so this will be my last “binge”. But then I do it all over again the next day. I don’t feel sorry for myself, because I know I got myself here. I am, however, extremely disappointed in myself. I wish there were a simple answer, a simple solution, a simple way to MAKE me do what I need to do.

I’m once again attempting to start a workout routine and start some healthy eating habits. I actually just started yesterday! A couple of months ago, one of my girlfriends told me about the Bikini Body Mommy Challenge (if you’re interested in checking that out, you can learn more about it here). It’s a 90 day challenge created by a gal who wanted to get back into shape after having her last child. The entire series of videos can be found on YouTube, so it’s completely free, which is pretty amazing. I believe she also has a book and meal plans of some sort, but I haven’t really checked all of that out. My friend is a bit past day 30 and has already lost 13 inches and around 8-9 pounds, so I know if I keep at this that I will see results. Actually, I always know I’ll see results, but I never continue working out long enough to see them. They never come fast enough, do they? I’m really hoping and praying that I will be able to hop on the bandwagon and actually stay on it this time. My health is really at stake here. I thought about posting photos on my blog to track my progress, but I just don’t have the guts to do it. Although I think if I actually did, I would feel extreme pressure to keep going because there’s no escaping that once it’s up there. I would have to keep at it because if not, not only would I see my failure, but everyone else would see it as well. Still, with all that said, I don’t think I’m ready to do that. Maybe once I get further along if I actually stick to it and make visible progress, I’ll post pictures from the beginning and then continue to post pictures of my on-going progress, but right now I’m honestly just way too self conscious about it.

Well guys, that’s my story for today. Like I said, this is something that weighs very heavy on my mind so I’d really like to talk about it with any of you who may be struggling as well. Maybe you were struggling with it before, maybe you have a success story to share. What works for you? What didn’t work for you? I would really love to hear your input and feedback.

I’m going to leave off with a quote I saw the other day, on Instagram I believe… These words are truly inspiring and couldn’t be more true.