Blog post by Ashley at Sugar Britches.
The biggest battle in my life has always been my weight.
I was a skinny little girl. I have pictures to prove it. Thin arms and legs with a little pot belly. My mother is petite. Now in her forties she is still thin as a rail and toned from a regular workout schedule. My father is a different story. As long as I can remember he has been overweight. My mom used to tell me that no matter how active he was or how little he ate, the weight never really came off. I blame this spare tire around my middle on genetics. His genetics.
When I hit that really awkward stage we call puberty, I got chunky. And I had boobs. Big boobs. By high school I had thinned out some but hit my maximum height of 5 foot and 4 1/2 inches. 130 pounds was a healthy weight for me. Not as skinny as I wanted but my normal size. I still thought I was fat. It's just a teenage affliction. By the time I was a Senior I weighed 114 pounds. Not through exercise or diet. But with the help of recreational drugs. I'm no angel, I've never claimed to be, and I firmly believe in a person's past being just that. The past. Even at my skinniest I hated my body. Truthfully I just hated myself in general, but at that age being pretty and skinny was what I wanted most. Never mind that having an ugly personality did nothing to help my exterior looks.
Three children later, here I am. Overweight. Locked in a battle with my biggest toughest enemy. I managed to drop enough weight to regain an almost size 8 after my first two pregnancies. Just by watching what I ate. Because lord knows I hate to move a muscle unless absolutely necessary. Right now Sugarbaby is 14 months old and I have 25 more pounds to go until I hit that 135-140 mark that I am told will be a healthy weight for me.
It is so hard.
Every day I wake up with a plan. A plan for what I am going to eat and what I am going to run screaming from should it cross my path. Drink lots of water, keep my carb intake low, watch my portions. Some days I am a weight loss rockstar. Other days I am Tommy Lee on a coke binge except my drug is food. I can say in all honesty that today was a good day. But even on good days, when I know what I put in my body was as healthy as it gets, I want to cry when I look in the mirror. Then I think, what does it really matter? If I am this unhappy on the way to skinny, why not eat whatever I want and be as they say, fat and happy?
Because that is what food does and why it is so hard. Food comforts you. Food soothes you. Food tastes really damn good! It's a tough choice to make and I liken it to having a devil on one shoulder and an angel on the other. The angel is the skinny girl inside, dying to get out. The devil is a red horned demon carrying a German chocolate cake and a fork.
No matter how much I hate it I know that the struggle won't end. I don't want to be overweight. I don't want the Monster to tell me again that I'm not as skinny as so and so is. I want my husband to be attracted to me and be proud that I am his wife. I want to be that skinny mom in the yoga pants with three kids and people saying, " Wow she looks great for having all those children!" Vain? Yes of course it is. I never said it wasn't. To want to look good for yourself, for your husband, for your ten year reunion is vanity in living color. But so is the woman who highlights her hair every month, lays in a tanning bed, and does her makeup every morning. It's not wrong, it's just human.
I sat watching Sugarbaby today chow down on a cookie. That girl has an appetite. She's a tiny thing, very petite for her age. But I had a flash forward to her teenage years and the battle with self image she is likely to have. I pray for her sake that she is one of those people that can stuff their face all day and never gain a pound. Realistically she'll probably be more like her mama. Capable of being a skinny girl but having to fight for it tooth and nail.
She's in there. I know she is. That skinny girl that's haunting me. I'm trying my hardest to let her out.
Ashley spends her days in a tiny Arkansas town mainlining coffee, wiping counters, floors,
and bootys, pretending to be a soccer mom, acting like she's a runner, chasing armadillos out of her orchard, in a constant state of remodel on her house and herself, loving on her three children and one amazing hunk of a husband. And blogging. Don't forget blogging.
The biggest battle in my life has always been my weight.
I was a skinny little girl. I have pictures to prove it. Thin arms and legs with a little pot belly. My mother is petite. Now in her forties she is still thin as a rail and toned from a regular workout schedule. My father is a different story. As long as I can remember he has been overweight. My mom used to tell me that no matter how active he was or how little he ate, the weight never really came off. I blame this spare tire around my middle on genetics. His genetics.
When I hit that really awkward stage we call puberty, I got chunky. And I had boobs. Big boobs. By high school I had thinned out some but hit my maximum height of 5 foot and 4 1/2 inches. 130 pounds was a healthy weight for me. Not as skinny as I wanted but my normal size. I still thought I was fat. It's just a teenage affliction. By the time I was a Senior I weighed 114 pounds. Not through exercise or diet. But with the help of recreational drugs. I'm no angel, I've never claimed to be, and I firmly believe in a person's past being just that. The past. Even at my skinniest I hated my body. Truthfully I just hated myself in general, but at that age being pretty and skinny was what I wanted most. Never mind that having an ugly personality did nothing to help my exterior looks.
Three children later, here I am. Overweight. Locked in a battle with my biggest toughest enemy. I managed to drop enough weight to regain an almost size 8 after my first two pregnancies. Just by watching what I ate. Because lord knows I hate to move a muscle unless absolutely necessary. Right now Sugarbaby is 14 months old and I have 25 more pounds to go until I hit that 135-140 mark that I am told will be a healthy weight for me.
It is so hard.
Every day I wake up with a plan. A plan for what I am going to eat and what I am going to run screaming from should it cross my path. Drink lots of water, keep my carb intake low, watch my portions. Some days I am a weight loss rockstar. Other days I am Tommy Lee on a coke binge except my drug is food. I can say in all honesty that today was a good day. But even on good days, when I know what I put in my body was as healthy as it gets, I want to cry when I look in the mirror. Then I think, what does it really matter? If I am this unhappy on the way to skinny, why not eat whatever I want and be as they say, fat and happy?
Because that is what food does and why it is so hard. Food comforts you. Food soothes you. Food tastes really damn good! It's a tough choice to make and I liken it to having a devil on one shoulder and an angel on the other. The angel is the skinny girl inside, dying to get out. The devil is a red horned demon carrying a German chocolate cake and a fork.
No matter how much I hate it I know that the struggle won't end. I don't want to be overweight. I don't want the Monster to tell me again that I'm not as skinny as so and so is. I want my husband to be attracted to me and be proud that I am his wife. I want to be that skinny mom in the yoga pants with three kids and people saying, " Wow she looks great for having all those children!" Vain? Yes of course it is. I never said it wasn't. To want to look good for yourself, for your husband, for your ten year reunion is vanity in living color. But so is the woman who highlights her hair every month, lays in a tanning bed, and does her makeup every morning. It's not wrong, it's just human.
I sat watching Sugarbaby today chow down on a cookie. That girl has an appetite. She's a tiny thing, very petite for her age. But I had a flash forward to her teenage years and the battle with self image she is likely to have. I pray for her sake that she is one of those people that can stuff their face all day and never gain a pound. Realistically she'll probably be more like her mama. Capable of being a skinny girl but having to fight for it tooth and nail.
She's in there. I know she is. That skinny girl that's haunting me. I'm trying my hardest to let her out.
Ashley spends her days in a tiny Arkansas town mainlining coffee, wiping counters, floors,
and bootys, pretending to be a soccer mom, acting like she's a runner, chasing armadillos out of her orchard, in a constant state of remodel on her house and herself, loving on her three children and one amazing hunk of a husband. And blogging. Don't forget blogging. Check out her blog at www.sugarbritchesblog.com
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