MOC8 January 17 - Hindsight is 2020 Journaling Challenge
- Description
- MOC8 January 17 - Hindsight is 2020 Journaling Challenge
Credits:
Speak up! (Bundle) by Little Butterfly Wings
Journaling:
"Its funny, and sometimes hard, to look back and see the person I was in my twenties. From where I sit now, I can see myself as I really was and not how I perceived myself at the time. I can see myself as healthy, active AND within in a healthy weight range, but I all saw back then was that I was overweight, and lazy.
They say that hindsight is 20/20, and from here I can clearly see where it all went wrong. I remember being asked to participate in a study at the James Cook University, to help a friend with their research. I participated in a study measuring body mass indices and lifestyle/dietary choices and after all of the testing I was told that I was in the obese range of my BMI. I remember being shocked and horrified. Before that day I was happily confident in the body I had, I ate food I enjoyed, participated in activities that were fun and social and was content in myself for the most part.
After that I was obsessed about my body image, yo-yo-ing between extreme diets and exercise fads. I joined various programs and classes, sometimes I binge ate and then would throw up. I joined Jenny Craig and forced myself to eat that horrible food while feeding my (then) boyfriend all the yummy and filling foods he needed to eat as an active tradesperson and wishing it was me eating pizza and pasta. My self-image was terrible, my self-talk was incredibly negative, and all the fad diets just made matters worse. I would lose weight and then bounce back, putting on more and more weight each time. Having children and seeing my body’s changes afterwards made my self- image take a battering and the weight kept creeping up and up.
But looking back, at my twenty-year-old self, things were never as bad as I thought they were. Now I can see that all of that negative self-image I had about myself from that moment on, laid the foundations for years upon years of poor choices when it came to diet until I found myself, at 52 struggling with my highest ever weight and lowest feelings about myself. I finally said enough to it all. So here I am at 52, after hard work, good food choices and positive exercise experiences, at a place where I like myself again. The life-style program I am on is liveable long-term, easily manageable from a family perspective, my exercise schedule is achievable and maintainable and I am feeling healthier, happier and more content in myself than I have since that day I walked into the research study. I know I have a long way to go still but I don’t hate myself while I am taking this journey and THAT is where things are different this time around. I am not listening to negative self-talk, am AM listening to only the positive. I wish I could tell myself to not go, to not listen to those words, never take those steps towards a life-time of self-doubt and poor self-esteem but I can’t ….. I just wish, knowing what I know now, things could have been different. But better late than never ….. right? "
542 words
