The Body...or is it the mind?!

As I have been thinking about what I was going to write about the body, I started contemplating if i was going to be 100% honest or if I was going to sugar coat things a little, of course, being a 'diary' I'm leaning more towards the honest side of things.

I was trying to work out exactly when I started not liking my body/appearance. It occurred to me that I can't even say how much I weighed in high school. I think the first time I knew my weight was when I went to hospital to get my wisdom teeth out....I was 18!!! I grew up spending a lot of time outdoors, I always played tennis and netball, swam all the time and was generally pretty active. In high school I never really put that much thought into my weight until I heard all the other girls doing it. I didn't think I was fat or thin, I just didn't think about it! Then I started hearing all the other girls at school complaining they were too fat, so I started doing the same. I can honestly say, at the time, I didn't mean it, I just kinda said it to fit in! How insane is that?! The funny thing is, on the odd occasion I wore anything fitted in high school, the girls would always comment on 'what a good figure I had'. That was when I adopted the terrible habit of not being able to take a compliment. Somehow I associated weight at that age with something you should never be happy with so I always replied with things like 'no I look fat' etc. The truth is, I was fine wearing whatever I wanted, I wasn't bothered wearing the ugly swimsuits for swimming races, I wore long skirts, short skirts, crop tops, bike shorts (hey, it was the late 80s/early 90s) etc. Then something changed in year 11 (I think) that made me incredibly self conscious. It's kinda embarrassing and so small in the scheme of things but it definitely shook my confidence a lot. We were in a school play and we all had to wear these shiny, blue unitards. Because one of the other girls and myself weren't body conscious, the teacher put us in an extra scene where we were just wearing the unitards with nothing over the top. Now, it turns out that I have a super long torso which means any 'all in one' items can tend to 'ride up' if they are short in the body. The unitard was really short in the body which meant it gave me (I'm already mortified saying it) a 'camel toe'. (bet you weren't expecting that now!) After that, a group of the boys (a pretty large group of meat heads, some of who hung around with my friends) nicknamed me 'the lab' (think about it, you will figure out why) but only ever snickering about it behind my back and never to my face right up until we left school. I never confronted them and was so embarrassed that I kept it to myself which started a long struggle of internal dialogue resulting with me ending up hating my physical appearance. That was the first time I had disliked my appearance and just wanted to disappear into the wall cracks. To be really honest, I never wore fitted jeans or pants until I was about 25 purely because I had become so self conscious, even though that was just a high school thing!

I started putting on weight pretty much as soon as left school, even though I still didn't know my weight, I just knew clothes stopped fitting me.I wasn't really doing any exercise except for dancing when we went out and I was eating lots of junk food.

I only started really becoming conscious of my weight gain in my early twenties and it really hit home when I went to Melbourne with my two best friends at the time. We went out every night and went shopping nearly everyday. They were both stunners, the kind of girls everyone looked at, both had the big boobs, tiny waists and tiny butts and were both very attractive blah blah blah. And there I was, in my baggy pants with my big butt (I had a butt before the JLos, Beyonces and Kardashians made it fashionable) suddenly realising I wasn't going to fit into any of the clothes I wanted to! I was comparing myself to my friends and suddenly feeling like absolute crap about myself.

Me trying to look like I'm not self conscious! And yes, I was wearing baggy pants!!

After that I decided to lose some weight. I started exercising and eating right and I lost 11 kgs. I kept that weight off right up until I was 40 but I didn't entirely feel good about myself, I definitely felt better though!

I've always been very critical of the way I look. In my head I will always be the fat friend. I know I will never have what is defined as a 'good' body, however, it amazes me that I went from someone not caring about that stuff to someone who followed a trend of not being happy with the way we look and then somehow it just stuck with me. I am completely responsible for how I feel about myself and it isn't because of anyone else.

I remember being absolutely shocked when one of my male friends first told me I had a good butt!! I had been so cruel to myself that I couldn't imagine that there was anything about me that was physically appealing. What amuses me the most, is that I would never call anyone else the names I call myself. I never judge people based on their physical appearance, I'm actually the person who will compliment a random stranger if I think they look good.

I always want everyone to feel good about themselves and try to let everyone see that they don't have to fit in with society's view on beauty and bodies. I then wonder, why am I so hard on myself? Shouldn't I be my own first priority?

I looked through some old pics tonight and saw myself at so many different sizes. Although I kept that 11 kgs off I have done many diets and lost more weight and then gained it. In some of the pics I know I was feeling good about myself but I also know I hadn't been particularly healthy about losing it! I have definitely been many weights! Most of all, however, I can see how self conscious I have been, and how I have allowed myself to have very little self confidence or self love and that is down to me. I have allowed myself to be that way!!

Always so awkward!!

Probably my thinnest. was pretty much living on beef jerky and sugar free red bull and pretty much put on all the weight as soon as I ate a piece of bread!

Was really hating my appearance at this stage!!

Was pretty healthy here.

I can remember desperately trying to stand as far back as possible in this pic! Man the mind can be a crazy thing!!! My friends didn't make me feel that way, it was all me!

I can see how uncomfortable I felt back then!

Feeling good, just before I turned 40!

The last pic brings me to my forties!!! The bloody forties! I can honestly say I put on 12 kgs in just 3 months when I turned 40. It was insane and I wasn't doing anything different. It really just happened. Since then, I have struggled to lose the weight. I have lost 5 then put on 4 then lost 6 then put on 5 etc etc. I know if I do low carb, high fat I can lose the weight but I put it back on because there are other foods I crave when I do that and I eventually let myself eat whatever I want!

When I started this 'Feel Good Diary' I intended on working on the body immediately! Cut to 4 weeks later and I have only just started working out this week. So now is the time. I want to eat balanced, happy foods that are full of colour and vitamins, I also want to feel fit, but I won't lie, I also want to look better. I want to wear the clothes I enjoy wearing and not feel self conscious.The good thing about this journey is I'm also working on the mind, so along with exercising and eating right, and most important of all, I want to train my mind not to be so hard on myself....I actually think that part, the mind, will be the biggest challenge of all.....

DMxx

ps. Oh and don't worry, I have continued to wear fitted jeans and pants since my mid twenties