A letter to my family and friends

Dear family and friends,

A few months ago, well around April, I decided I was tired. Am I too young to be tired? Maybe... or maybe I'm too old to finally be realizing it, but I am. I am tired. I am so tired of trying to change me, be thinner, skinnier, more toned, weigh less... etcetera. I was tired of worrying about what others thought of me. Tired of hating my body. Loving everything about me, but not my body, it has never been good enough, thick or thin, I have always seen it as something that needed to be changed. And as I have said before in this blog somewhere... I have tried every diet out there... everything... besides surgery! All in the name of being thin. All in the name of changing my body to please others because then I would be loved more or of worth or be able to get that promotion I want. Everything will be better just if I was skinnier. So I would restrict, diet, go on the next new eating plan, try different exercise plans and shortly after I would mess up... I would eat something I shouldn't, I would miss a few days of exercise... and I would give up and I would be ashamed and hate myself for it. Then guilt kicks in, because this body grew two beautiful beings inside of it, working a miracle twice over, and I'm ashamed that I'm so ashamed and hateful of my body! It's an aggressive continuous circle and I have become tired of running it.

So I decided I was going to start working on the inside. Not to lose weight but to love me no matter my size, because then, and only then, will I be able to breathe. So I stopped dieting, that was step one. But then what? Besides weight gain... then what? I had no idea, I was in this foreign territory and I didn't know what to do with myself. My whole life, well the parts that I remember, has been filled with my plans of losing weight... that's all I remember. Sad right!? Maybe...but it's true. So I did what every person does when they don't know something nowadays... I googled, "How do I love my body?". There is a whole movement out there of body love and esteem. So I stopped running and took my first step to loving me on the inside. I started listening to podcasts! These podcasts pointed me to meditation to guide and control my negative thoughts and directed me to look for activity and movement that my body enjoyed instead of trying to punish the sweat out of every time I couldn't stick to my eating plan or felt my body wasn't changing how it "should" fast enough. Listening to these podcasts also helped me realize I wasn't alone, that many many women (and men) feel the same way that I do and have gone through the same things I am going through and two books kept coming up as ones that helped them on their journey to their inner happiness ... so I bought them and am reading them. (The podcasts and books I will share in a later blog post).

So I'm writing this letter to help you understand...and know how to support me... in finding me whomever that is...in whatever body that is.

• So please, I'd appreciate, if you don't tell me about a new eating plan you've done or are doing just because you feel it would "help" me.  
• Please don't ask me why I'm not still on the last eating plan I tried where I lost weight.
• Please don't ask me the next time I'm going to work out because I looked so good then
• Please don't bring up "back when" stories where I looked so cute (when I was thinner).

Instead, let's chat about "back when" I did something good for someone or where we laughed really hard at something or where we enjoyed something to eat without worrying what was in it before we ate it, where we experienced the food. 

I may gain weight during this journey, I may stay the same, and I may even lose weight, but please try not to focus on the outside appearance, try to focus on the inside, because that is what I will be doing.  Some days are going to be rough for me because I have to retrain 25 plus years of hate, negativity, and attached worth around my body. I will have really good and positive days and I'm also going to have days where I won't be able to control the negative thoughts inside my head and I may cry, and feel bad about myself, and doubt everything I'm doing. That is when I will need your love, support, and encouragement to stay the course.

I know with every fiber of my being that if I stay the course of this journey, I WILL have more positive than negative days, eventually, and will have retrained my thoughts to assist me. How am I so sure of this? Because I've tried everything else. Through this, my hope is to love my body and the miracle of it, regardless of its size, and be less judgemental of others bodies.

Here is my plan... I plan on figuring out when my body is hungry and when it is satisfied, what foods feel good after eating them and what foods my body naturally doesn't like by how I feel after I eat them which will help me know the consequence of the foods I eat. So I can eat whatever I want, whenever I want, but will be more attuned with how those foods will make me feel after.  I plan on finding what my body loves to do to keep it active and functioning with different movement and exercise that I enjoy and want to continue to do. This will be done with never restricting myself again with foods, movement, or by giving myself rules.

I'm not going to lie, I'm scared. My whole worth and what I've felt equates to beauty has been wrapped up in my body size. I never knew how to judge those things any other way. I've always felt I was "letting myself go" if I wasn't dieting or exercising in a restrictive and punishing manner.

However, with the few months I have dedicated so far to this journey I am realizing...I'm not letting myself go, I'm loving myself more.

Love,

Shelle