It has taken me longer than I wanted to post these pictures, mostly because I feel embarrassed to post my pictures but I feel like I have to to show myself that I was able to almost reach my goal. A goal that had been too hard to reach until now. I recently read an article about why people who are even a little overweight wont stand in front of the camera and I felt like it was describing me the entire time. A while ago when I wrote about my weight loss challenge I wrote about "finding myself" and it is kind of weird that slowly I am starting to see not my old self but a new person. I don't want people to think that I think I am gorgeous because I don't think that at all, who ever thinks that of themselves are pretty vain or not am I also looking for attention by posting this. This is very personal but also wanted to share my experience and I want to show my kids that I was able to do what I told them months ago.
It is amazing to see the difference to me, the picture on the left above was taken about three years ago. I remember after those pictures were taken how I was so unhappy with myself, it is a shame that we all tend to go by what we look like and how we are all supposed to look a certain way. I was starting to compare myself to other people around me and that is what made it worse. Also the fact that there are some lucky women out there who get pregnant and barely look like it, then have their babies and a week later are back to their skinny self like they never even had a baby. Pregnancy is hard on a woman, it makes so many changes and I know from experience that not all pregnancies do the same to our own bodies, some leave you with more scars and more damage than others. I don't regret having children and I would honestly would go through the whole thing all over again. But the struggle that most of us go through after is very hard, it does not make us any better of a mother to not be able to lose the weight but it does interfere with our daily life, I remember looking at pictures of my mom when I was little and seeing a beautiful person there and then wishing that one they my kids would do the same and they are so sweet, they tell me I am beautiful, it is so simple to them, they are still so pure and innocent and they don't see me the way I see myself. That kind of reminds me of how my Heavenly Father sees me, I have made changes towards the way I look at myself now. Instead of saying I am ugly or I am fat, I tell myself the words that he would tell me and it has change the way I look at myself. Am I proud of my progress.... of course I am. I am happy to see that the changes I have made, I am happy that after my surgery some good things came out of it, I am happy to see that my body is cooperating with me and I am glad to see that I have the strong will to achieve my goals.
I told Dan about my challenge for the next six months and he knows that I mean it, he knows that I will be able to achieve it too. I am planning on doing my bridal pictures that I never had done when we got married. Come December I will be able to fit into my wedding gown (which is almost doable) and then go get some pictures done with the help of my trusty companion Shayna and I am going to fix my hair, do my makeup and do this for me, I know that part is kind of silly to Dan probably but to me is what is going to keep me going. I know it is not going to be that hard, it is only 15 lbs that I have to go down for my new goal but it will be a great thing.
I feel like I am being a good example to my kids, they see me struggle or have seen me struggle with food before, now they see how hard I am trying to cook and eat healthier and they see the difference. They might not always like my choices but they do great. Tristan goes out on walks with me when he can and Shayna has gone to the gym with me before and that has been fun. I talk to her about taking care of her body staring now so when she gets to be my age she wont struggle like I have.
Also I know this is not one of those amazing stories that you see on TV with the before and after pictures and this might be silly but it does feel good :)
Here is another couple of pictures that show the difference.
The picture above is from September last year and the one below was taken about two months ago, one day while I was posting the bottom picture on FB I realized I was wearing one of my favorite T shirts and I remember that I had a picture of me wearing it so I went back and found it. It amazes me to see the big difference between the two. In the old one I look like I am 7 months pregnant and the one below you can even see the wrinkles on it... cool right?
And last but not least this is the pic that I took back in February it was taken while I had already lost half of the weight and the other picture (wearing all black) was taken at the end of July. It might not show much but my measurements are smaller and I can see the difference but that's because that's my body :)
