Gaining Weight... and Perspective.

The best way to gain weight is to go on a diet! So lets give a brief case history of my waistline. For the majority of my life I was skinny, now looking back I can see REALLY skinny, so bad that when I was little random people would walk up to my mom and tell her to feed me more, a rather rude thing to say to a family in poverty, and again a demonstration of our cultures lack of grace and complete willingness to vocally judge others publicly. Family History: My dads contribution to image issues... well lets not get too far in to that(It's Ugly) but lets leave it with he is over weight, and said cruel things like "if you eat that you'll balloon up like your sister". My mom has been on one long string of diets for as long as I can remember, she blames her finicky stomach for her not eating much of anything. Recently three doctors asked her is she was anorexic. When I was little I remember her helping my sister diet, these mom and daughter diets where on and off, and still kind of happen. My brother was a bean poll of a guy till he got out of the army and stop doing much. Then there is my beautiful sister a stunning child with blue eyes and platinum blond hare that is such a blessing that even when she try's to dye it, it won't keep the color it just shines through. She was a curvy child but never, never fat! As she grew up with the way my parents and society treated her her weight became a terrible out of control spiral (Let it be known she had the typical german body type but with the hight to go with it) all the diets yo-yoed her health painfully.

Age 11ish

For me I knew skinny, it was what I was, I was obviously aware of weight but did not ever care, I eat what I needed and it was never okay to wast food in our family. Around 12 my dad started making those comments, and time after time went so far as to make me keep food journals because he was "so worried about my health with all the junk I eat" keep in mind he hardly ever made a meal, and we never had soda in the house and for the most part what was in the house had to be within the low sodium diet, healthier food necessary for his blood presser/hart diet (notice the inconsistencies yet), all that said I was use to how they had treated my sister so it was not anything abnormal to hear such degrading discussions, but around that time I fell in with a group of girls that were very focused on every pound, so I started to notice and god forbid I turned 100Lb, so that was it I had to watch what I eat and start cutting things out, and hay don't you know it I had all that practice keeping food journals and watching my mom and sister take on every fad diet. So I jumped right in and don't you know started to gain weight, and the vicious cycle began, a little more weight = diet a little more, more weight = more dieting, all the way to 19 and a crash diet of one apple a day with constant working out even wall working. I was 130Lb and one sick girl. When I was 18 some bad personal things happened that helped my body torture along, it gets easier to diet when you believe you don't deserve to be fed. So at 19 I was killing my self working three jobs from 8am till 11pm or later, I was burning out bad and needed a change, so I put in for a transfer at my main job and knew it would be a crazy physical job, so I had to shape up and stop starving my self. I had also made some decisions about being the kind of person I wished I was.

Post apple diet

So when my transfer took over I did my best to start eating at least dinner and trying very hard to work so hard that no one would ever see how horrible I was: always coming in an hour early for work, taking on any extra hard work that no one wanted to do. Anything to be better than what I felt I was, and what I was backhandedly being told I was at home. This job came with a lot of public speaking, responsibility, hot people my age, and a boss that really wanted to be everyones mom. So yah a lot of growing up really fast. A year later this fun guy came to work with us and he was so relaxed and silly it was impossible not to be happy when you were around him.

The happiest person I know

Oh right Happiness, yah never good at happiness, anything that made me happy was a point of leverage to be used against me at any given point, so I learn early not to show happiness and in so forgot a lot how, the beginning of my life was about surviving. laughing scared me but know matter what happened me and the happy fun guy just kept being thrown together, and by the time we had been dating for like three months and he told me he loved me, completely shocking me, not that he said it that early, I knew I loved him and that he was the person I wanted to spend the rest of my life laughing with, but because I totally and completely did not believe I was worthy of his love. From there on out I was not just striving for the ideal perfection of servitude and self sacrifice, but to be the person that deserve that kind silly love. A year later I changed jobs (night shift EKG tech and respiratorytherapist aid)and moved out of my parents house, this changed my life. My family for once did not know where I lived, I had a good paying job and a man who loved me. I still was not very healthy especially with food so my boyfriend bought me a fish tank so I had to remember to feed them and in turn myself. Life when on like this till we decided to move in together in the bigger city,it meant a longer commute for me but being with the person I loved for more time was worth it. At that point my job was just BAD one of my supervisors threatened to hit me, and I was developing some strange health issues I when through everything from allergic reactions to penicillin(never had a problem with that before) to having the chicken pox (for the second time) I refer to 2007 as the year of spots, I broke out in spots 5 times witch was hiding the fact that the spots where making me sick and cutting off my air supply, Yah severe latex allergy means you can't work at an old-school hospital, I gained about 15Lb during this time, so not only did I have to quit my job but my immunsystem was trashed, my body was shot from years of stress and working like a crazy person. So at the end of that year after finishing a half marathon(13.1 miles) my body gave up on letting go of any extra calories witch was just in time for my boyfriend to decide it he wanted to be my fiancee, and as every -to be wed- knows thats the time to really buckle down and lose those extra pounds "wedding photos last for ever" just keeps at you. Gym memberships, calorie counting, dance lessons, looking up any real information about "real diets" was the name of the game, so by that time next year when we got married I had put on Yes put on 30 Lb.

Our wedding

This was pure Insanity I was conscious of everything going in to my mouth and some how nothing worked! it actually worked the opposite way! I was so depressed about my weight for the wedding and it was a crazy stressful year of nightmare relatives, wedding chaos, buying our first house and moving together, but through it all I was still very happy to be marrying the best person I know. however this I will say my husband is a very relaxed person, motivation is just not his thing, so I had moved in to a more sedentary part of my life, and for once I had someone I felt obligated to feed. So I was eating at least one meal a day. The hardest part of this crazy dieting for the wedding, feeling lost and betrayed by my body, was that my fiancee Loved that I was gaining weight, he liked me with more to me and could not for the life of him understand why I was so upset, witch made me feel partially lonely in the uphill battle and partially confused by his love of my new body. After the wedding I gave up, I was done torturing my self I wanted to eat healthy and see if maybe some of my hubbies love of my body could rub off on me, I still hated every pound as it came, all last 30Lb of it. After culinary school, good grades in my nutrition class that taught me that all bodies are different some bodies have there own size that you just cant fight unless your perfect fit is a casket, and that eating Is so good for you and beneficial to your whole health, that and some great FaceBook pages gave me some better perspective. I now look at a photograph of my German/Scottish Grandmother, I have her body, her stout strength, her curves her genes and there is nothing wrong with that. I am me, All 230Lb, I'd like some little changes, but I am too happy in my life to give up the blessings I have to be consumed by weight any longer.

me learning to fly a plain this winter