Birthing Hips

I think I was born curvy, when I hit puberty I went from little girl clothes to misses overnight it seemed. The natural progression of hitting a major milestone in your life, of course, is to go on a diet, right?  Living with my grandparents during the early years of puberty were hell, they were the biggest reasons for my whole dysfunctional relationship with food and my body. "Thunder thighs" were often referenced and little jabs of how my body looked were an everyday occurrence. My defense mechanism? I would just say that God was just getting me ready for my vocation as a mother, thus "birthing hips". I've been on a "diet" since the age of 11. The sad thing is that I was never "obese", I was just developing naturally but in the process I made it worse by eating my feelings. Mostly feelings of anger and defiance. Once my uncle saw me grab some Oreos and made a comment about me not "needing" those Oreos and I proceeded to eat the entire package, in front of him, just to make a point. You can't tell me what to do! It all went down hill from there.

After I had my 5th child, I was dead set on losing a whole bunch of weight and getting skinny. My sister and brother were getting married back to back over the summer and I was dead set on looking good for pics. I saw a couple of friends doing different diets and it seemed to work for them, as they touted the "incredible" weight loss and energy they had found. So, I jumped onto band wagon after band wagon, hoping beyond hope that this time it would work. I worked out every day, or at least every other day, for at least half an hour and I ate close to nothing. Each time with hope growing that THIS would be it, I will finally be skinny. NO WEIGHT LOSS! Nothing, nada, zilch! Some inches lost but not what I was expecting or wanting, especially with all the time and effort I was giving to this project. Something else that was worrying me, on top of not seeing any results, was that I had lost my cycles at 19, I went from a 28 day-er to absolutely nothing. And after my 5th pregnancy (assisted by fertility drugs) I realized that my body at 32 was different than my body at 21 and I couldn't do this anymore as an overweight person. I want more children, so losing weight and gaining my fertility back was imperative. So, I found a new doctor that came highly recommended from a friend of mine. The answer the doctor gave me was = Lyme disease......I was told that I have a particular hard strain of Lyme in my uterus and thyroid. Hmmmm....no periods and no weight loss....yep,lyme. It's a trial of patience as I have to take 7-10 pills a morning and half of them at night and the pounds aren't necessarily melting off of me, but I do see and feel some change. I only just started on the hard hitting meds and I am hopeful that my results in the next two months will be positive....or in the negative, as I'd like to see on the scale.

What I've learned in this whole process, is that we are all made in the image and likeness of God but we are all different too. My body and my metabolism, my appetite and my tastes are completely different from others. Just how we take the Myers-Briggs test to see what our personalities are, there are individual temperaments for weight loss. I can't eat certain foods: corn, peppers, cauliflower, broccoli, tomatoes and certain grains, kill my stomach. So I stay away from those and I only eat when I'm hungry; before I was eating every 2 hours and I couldn't do it. During Lent, I'm working on curbing my habit of eating ice cream in the evening, I always would eat a bowl of ice cream around 9:30. Slowly but surely working on bad eating habits that have not served me in the past is all a part of growing up, I guess. I've also realized that working out is easier for me and I'll do it more often than the food part. So, if me eating two pieces of toast with peanut butter and a glass of OJ in the morning, then not eating again until 2 or 3 (sometimes just a can of tuna with crackers) and then eating at 6 or 7 and then repeating it again the next day, works for me, then awesome! If working out 7 days a week for 30 minutes a day, works for me, then great!  Know yourself, be in tune with your body and what it needs and can handle and do it! Stay tuned for my journey........