Vulnerability

I've never been considered someone who was thin. I was by no means an overweight child, but I've definitely had wide hips and large thighs since puberty. As an adolescent, I was constantly comparing myself to my skinny friends, and would mentally beat myself up thinking I was "huge". I was always athletic, playing one sport or another year round and staying in good shape. But if I compared my actual weight or my jean size with my friends, I was always bigger... I'm not kidding about the muscular thighs and big hips thing. So I decided that I couldn't focus on a number on a scale. As long as I stayed active and ate my normal diet, I maintained a healthy weight for my body type and felt good about myself.

[Growing up: A girl with her yo-yo // Looking super cool on Christmas with my new coat, new rollerblades, and new Walkmen... maybe 3rd grade? // Boy band pose with my brother in 5th grade // Beach in summer after 8th grade // Senior pics]

Once I went to college, my normal routine dramatically shifted, and I started to gain weight. I went from all those years of playing a sport (soccer, intramural volleyball, track & field, or even taking dance classes) year round, to playing on a men's soccer team at my tiny Penn State branch campus that had no women's team. I lasted one semester at that campus before transferring to a campus a little closer to home and closer to Matt (my then boyfriend, now husband). I briefly looked into trying out for the women's soccer team there, but they had a really good reputation and I knew it would be a tough tryout, and I was intimidated. So I just stopped playing altogether.

Cue weight gain.

[Cruise in '08, Thanksgiving '09, Wedding in '10, Trip West in '12, Half Marathon in '14]

I've always considered myself a fairly healthy eater. I actually enjoy salads and generally eat a ton of fruit and vegetables. But I never in my life had to actually monitor what I was eating or how much I was eating, because I was always out-exercising my eating habits. Now I had basically stopped exercising, but continued to eat whatever I wanted. The number on the scale started to creep up and up.

This fall, it will be ten years since I went away to college. (Can I just take a moment and say how in the world has it been TEN YEARS?!) In the past decade, my weight has constantly fluctuated up and down. I go in cycles where I don't exercise at all and overeat, then join Weight Watchers and lose some of the weight, then start training for and run a half marathon and find myself in the best physical condition since I was high school, then gain all the weight back.

It's a constant battle for me.

But through it all, I maintained my stance that I couldn't just focus on a number on a scale and instead tried to focus on how my clothes fit, what I look like in the mirror, and how I felt.

Well, last summer, I started realizing I felt pretty damn bad. I was stressed and overwhelmed - we had picked up our life in Indiana and moved back to PA, and I was struggling with a deeply personal issue (more on that at a later date). I started to pack on some extra weight. Before I knew it, I was up almost 40 lbs, and was absolutely shocked when I finally stepped on the scale and saw that number.

I never in my life thought I would reach that weight. Not a great feeling.

I started to realize I didn't recognize the person I had become. Over the years I've perfected the way I position my body while looking at myself in the mirror or when posing for photos, but every once in a while I would catch a glimpse of myself in a candid photo, a dressing room mirror, or worse yet, a video taken by a friend or family member, and couldn't believe how far I had let myself go.

It was finally time to do something.

Two weeks ago, I decided I wanted to start running again. I've always liked running, and I'm fairly decent at it. I can go months without running at all, and then pick back up and go a few miles, no matter where I'm at physically. It's become my favorite form of exercise over the years, especially once I started training for a half marathon and running longer distances. I set a goal to run every day for ten days. My only rules were that I couldn't walk and that I had to do a minimum of two miles. It was tough at first, and I was painfully slow. But after a few days, I started to feel like my old self. The runs got easier, and my times improved. I went ten days and decided I would aim for two straight weeks of my daily runs. However, shin splints got the best of me. The night of my twelfth run, I lay in bed crying while Matt rubbed ice on my shins. It wasn't pretty. So I decided I needed a rest, so that's what I've been doing for the last three days. However, I'm proud of myself for making it twelve days, and know it's a step in the right direction. I needed something to get myself outside, shake off the winter blues, and start focusing on myself again.

[My twelve days of running.]

[Hahah... I need this shirt, stat.]

I recently read Shonda Rhimes' book, Year of Yes. It's a fantastic book, and in it she talks about her dramatic 100 lb + weight loss. One quote of hers that really hit me was this: "Spend your valuable years on this planet thinking about something other than your weight". I realized I have been focused on my weight and my body image for the majority of my life. How many hours had I wasted beating myself up over this? Countless. It was a freeing thought to think that I didn't have to waste anymore time on it. I can't totally let myself go and one day wake up at 700 lbs, but I needed a change in mindset. I know this whole issue with weight is something I'll have to work on for the rest of my life, but I think I'm finally at peace with it.

This is by no means going to become a blog about weight loss. I may write about my journey from time to time as a means of holding myself accountable and documenting my progress, but I'm so far from an expert that it's laughable. I just hope I can keep heading in the right direction, and by putting myself out there maybe open up the dialog and start a conversation about something that I (and so many other people) have struggled with for years. 

I think I'm finally ready for a change.

If you read this entire post, bless you. But even if you didn't, it feels good to finally get it out.

Love,

Steph