Since I can remember I have always been overweight. In elementary school, my class went to the nurse's office and the nurse would yell out the weight to the other nurse to record. Grudgingly, loud enough that the entire class could hear. I turned, humiliated, seeing the jaws of the girls I wanted to be accepted by hit the floor and look at me as if I had some sick disease.
I hated physical ed in high school. I would go in to the bathroom stalls away from the changing area with the rest of the girls because I was so embarrassed of my body. I remember hearing the girls say how weird it was that I would leave and go change, although I thought I was so sneaky getting in the bathroom stall, pretending I just always needed to go to the restroom or I needed to check my pad because it was that time of the month.
The girls stopped buying in to my lies. And I was now a laughing target. I played it off with my friends and just acted like I didn't care. But I did, and I was mortified.
When I was a little girl, my mom would tell me how disgusting I looked because I was fat. One of my older sisters was always skinny and cared very much for her image. Because of this, my mother would say "Melissa has the looks and Cristina has the brains". My mom would pack lunches for me with very little food because she wanted me to lose weight--in which I would attempt to "trade" lunches with other kids at lunch time. My mother asked a doctor in her office she worked at to give me diet pills to "help me".
My mom and step-dad would ignore phones call from me to pick me up from work (before I could drive and had a car), so I would walk home in the summer, in Phoenix with 120 degree weather after working at my high school job. Bless those that I worked with that would sometimes have a shift that ended with mine and would offer me a ride home.
I remember in high school buying my own clothes because I couldn't swallow the thought of my mom taking me clothes shopping and complaining about the size 16 or 18 she would have to buy for me because I was overweight.
Fast forward several years, I am married with children, and I am still over-weight. I was diagnosed during my infertility days with Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome, which makes it difficult to regulate body weight. It was likely something I was born with. I can take a medication that helps with it. But it is really hard on my body. So I don't. And because I don't, the weight remains. Any guesses on who, until recently, reminded me of the weight?
Let me be clear. I without a shadow of a doubt know how important living healthy is to my family and I. I also know what should and shouldn't be done to make our lives healthier. But, I also know there will come a time and a place when that light will go on. I will turn things around and I will start taking better care of my body.
This won't happen until the voice in my head goes away. The voice that told me since I was a little girl that I was disgusting. That I was smart, but not cute or pretty. That I was a failure. Because I am fat.
Do I find myself out of breath sometimes? Yes. Do I wish there are things I could do more with my kids and could very possibly do if I was more fit? Absolutely. Does that voice in my head still stop me from making a change? Undoubtedly.
What my mother and others think of my weight is none of my business. What my husband and children think of me, means the world to me. My husband and children have never, ever, had a problem with me as a overweight mother. My weight has nothing to do with my relationship with them. My weight is something only I can control and take care of. Not them.
My husband and children will always love me, no matter how skinny or fat I am.
My weight has and always will control my life. And it will, until I work on ignoring, forgetting, and silencing the voice in my head that tells me how much weight controls my life.
I hated physical ed in high school. I would go in to the bathroom stalls away from the changing area with the rest of the girls because I was so embarrassed of my body. I remember hearing the girls say how weird it was that I would leave and go change, although I thought I was so sneaky getting in the bathroom stall, pretending I just always needed to go to the restroom or I needed to check my pad because it was that time of the month.
The girls stopped buying in to my lies. And I was now a laughing target. I played it off with my friends and just acted like I didn't care. But I did, and I was mortified.
When I was a little girl, my mom would tell me how disgusting I looked because I was fat. One of my older sisters was always skinny and cared very much for her image. Because of this, my mother would say "Melissa has the looks and Cristina has the brains". My mom would pack lunches for me with very little food because she wanted me to lose weight--in which I would attempt to "trade" lunches with other kids at lunch time. My mother asked a doctor in her office she worked at to give me diet pills to "help me".
My mom and step-dad would ignore phones call from me to pick me up from work (before I could drive and had a car), so I would walk home in the summer, in Phoenix with 120 degree weather after working at my high school job. Bless those that I worked with that would sometimes have a shift that ended with mine and would offer me a ride home.
I remember in high school buying my own clothes because I couldn't swallow the thought of my mom taking me clothes shopping and complaining about the size 16 or 18 she would have to buy for me because I was overweight.
Fast forward several years, I am married with children, and I am still over-weight. I was diagnosed during my infertility days with Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome, which makes it difficult to regulate body weight. It was likely something I was born with. I can take a medication that helps with it. But it is really hard on my body. So I don't. And because I don't, the weight remains. Any guesses on who, until recently, reminded me of the weight?
Let me be clear. I without a shadow of a doubt know how important living healthy is to my family and I. I also know what should and shouldn't be done to make our lives healthier. But, I also know there will come a time and a place when that light will go on. I will turn things around and I will start taking better care of my body.
This won't happen until the voice in my head goes away. The voice that told me since I was a little girl that I was disgusting. That I was smart, but not cute or pretty. That I was a failure. Because I am fat.
Do I find myself out of breath sometimes? Yes. Do I wish there are things I could do more with my kids and could very possibly do if I was more fit? Absolutely. Does that voice in my head still stop me from making a change? Undoubtedly.
What my mother and others think of my weight is none of my business. What my husband and children think of me, means the world to me. My husband and children have never, ever, had a problem with me as a overweight mother. My weight has nothing to do with my relationship with them. My weight is something only I can control and take care of. Not them.
My husband and children will always love me, no matter how skinny or fat I am.
My weight has and always will control my life. And it will, until I work on ignoring, forgetting, and silencing the voice in my head that tells me how much weight controls my life.
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