The story

Everyone acts like there is some magical moment when it comes to weight loss. That one morning you wake up and suddenly everything makes sense, you appetite is smaller, you love running, and lettuce is your new chocolate (no, just no). The truth is that for me it was a lot of little moments that led to me deciding to change my life.

My whole life I have struggled with weight, I have always been the bigger girl and to be honest I did not really care most of the time. Unlike all of the horrible shows and movies, I was not teased or made to feel unwanted because of my weight. At least not by people around me. The person who was the worst to me was myself. If I ever had a friend who said the same horrible things to me that I used to say to myself I would have cut them out of my life. 

Yet every morning I would wake up and unleash a near constant stream of self-hate. When I looked in the mirror all I saw was my weight or my acne, I would see the stretch marks on my shoulders or the way my stomach jiggled every time I took a breath. When I walked down the street I imagined the horrible things that people would be thinking about me, how I was such a pig. Yet never once has another person said anything like that to me.

I was my own bully.

More so than my weight this was the hardest thing to come to terms with during this journey. Changing what you eat and you activity levels is easy, changing the way you love yourself on the other hand. That is hard.

When I realized the way I was talking to myself was the first moment that I realized something needed to change. The rest fell into place after that. There was the moment when I realized I wanted to have more energy, or when I realized that I never wanted anyone to worry about me the way my mom has to worrying about my step dad who has heart problems. After that it was like I finally knew that I could handle this.

I think that is what people don’t understand sometimes about weight loss, that the internal transformation is actually the hardest part. I am so proud to say more than just the weight loss I am finally learning to be my own friend, it feels like coming home.

Love and munchies,

Zoey