Taking my Life Back

Since coming out of my own darkness I have been committed to helping others out of theirs. I am so proud of myself for the work I have done. I have overcome so much. When I sit and think back to where I was just mentally and emotionally 6 year ago and where I stand now, I am amazed at myself. While my commitment is to stand in my truth and encouraging others to do the same, there is a part of my life that I haven’t been ready to come face to face with. Today I am ready.

I have gained a tremendous amount of weight over the last maybe 10 years. In that time, I have been diagnosed with an Auto-Immune disease that has over the years caused me great pain and struggle. I allowed depression to set in and take over. I ate all the wrong stuff and gave myself permission to consume whatever since the doctors said I am going to die anyway. I ate too much and too late, I rarely ate the right things, and my activity was down to almost nothing.

Even thought I was committed to living my best life, I convinced myself that I needed to just love myself where I was and accept the weight. Not change my eating habits, just accept it. I could not have been more wrong. While I did need to love myself no matter what I looked like, I needed to completely stand in my truth. Despite my health challenges, I had given up on myself. Everything I ate was wrong. I would eat and go straight to sleep. I would eat in the car or wherever I was when I felt hungry. I was not the type to gorge but my choices were definitely wrong. I was believing God for a complete healing but wasn’t doing anything to facilitate said healing. I wanted God to do all the work. I took no accountability for my own life I put it all on Him. I even had the audacity to be angry with God because my healing wasn’t coming.

One day during my private prayer time I asked God to help me change my appetite. That may sound strange to some, but I know the Bible say that I can ask anything in Jesus name and it will be done. I believed that I had to start somewhere. Slowly I stopped craving chips and things of the sort. To the point where I had no desire for them at all. Then all I wanted to watermelon. I know that is such a strange switch but that’s what I wanted. I got a place where if I didn’t have a taste for something and I ate it, it literally made me sick. But I still wasn’t ready to change on a grand scale though. See I love chicken. Please understand me when I say I love chicken. Specifically, friend chicken. If it were possible, I would eat it every day. This was my Achilles heel. I know all the best restaurants to get the best chicken. I even incorporated it into one of my sermons once. I can’t remember a time in my life not loving fried chicken. Everybody I know, knows I love it. My pastor made me the official chicken frier for church dinners and repasts. My love for the “Baptist bird” was serious. I always asked myself what would I do without chicken? I came up with every excuse to continue the path I was on. But this path was killing me slowly but surely.

When the pandemic happened, I wasn’t worried because I was only going to be off work for a few weeks or so. I was committed to doing more sleeping than anything during this time. But that few weeks became what today is 2 weeks short of a year. I ate out way more than I care to admit. Good food, bad food, horrible food, just one bad decision after another. One day I went to take a shower and looked at myself real hard and did not like who was looking back at me. I didn’t know her anymore. The things I was able to do for myself was becoming less and less. I was always so tired. While my blood disorder contributes to that a great deal, I was making an already complex problem worse. I wanted to be better. I have no negative words for those who are happy as big girls. But as for me I wanted to not only look better I wanted to feel better. I always felt so sluggish I had no real motivation to do anything.

September 2019 my husband and I decided to take on this weight loss journey. We were doing so well. I was probably still eating too much but was definitely making better choices. I hadn’t conquered my cravings completely, but I wasn’t yielding to them. I felt like I had a new level of strength that I didn’t have before. My husband and I watch quite a bit of weight loss tv and one thing that is consistent regardless of what country you are in is you have to deal with the psychological aspect of weight gain, or you will not be successful. I didn’t want to come to terms with my demons. I was convinced that if I didn’t acknowledge them, they would eventually go away. They didn’t. But then I got a different distraction. My husband had a stroke. Changed me. I instantly went back to eating all the wrong foods. The very next day. My new excuse was I don’t have time to focus on eating right. I need to focus on getting my husband well anything beyond that was secondary. Truthfully, my head or my heart was never really in it. I thought it was a waste of time really.

When I could no longer use my husband as my excuse, I was left to sit with my demons once again. I was faced with my psychological issues that I could no longer ignore. As much as I had grown and as far as I had come there was still an unhealed little girl in me that needed to be saved and only, I could save her. She believed with her whole heart that she had no right to believe or dream for a better life. She believed that she was only allowed to live a mediocre life because that was her measure. She lived and embraced this concept on so many fronts. I knew I was the only one that could tell her that it was okay to be more. Those crippling voices are not nearly as loud as they once were. The things I say to myself are different. My outlook on food is completely different. I realized that weight loss begins in the mind. Once I changed my thinking everything else followed.

Today I am committed to making better choices. Not just for weight loss but to also just think clearer, feel better and live my best life. My cravings are down to a minimum and most importantly I am fully committed to the process. I know and fully understand that it’s a marathon and not a sprint. I am prepared for the long haul. I view this in the same way I view my relationship with God; it is not something I do occasionally, it is a way of life. Better food choices are my new way of life. I haven’t had any regrets as of yet. I know the day will come when I want my mom to bake me a cake, but that is not today. I will keep you all updated on my progress.