The frustration of weight loss.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve always been told that I should lose weight. From family members to doctors visits, I’ve always had someone telling me that my weight was too high. Visiting the doctor became a nightmare for me at a young age because I grew increasingly tired of hearing the term, “obese.” Nothing about the experiences were ever encouraging or motivating but more or less, debilitating to my confidence. Imagine being six or seven years old and being on a diet that became noticeable to everyone at school. This was the beginning of the bullying that I would endure throughout elementary school lasting until middle school.

When it comes to losing weight, I believe I tried it all. I almost tried TrimSpa at a young age until my mother did research on it and revealed how unhealthy it was. I tried Herbalife twice with my most recent attempt beginning January 2016. Don’t get me wrong, I lost the weight. I started 2016 at 212 pounds and was able to drop down to 174 pounds. I was beyond happy and excited to see the results I was receiving. I became inspired to even try to distribute the products myself and try to help others achieve the results that I was obtaining. It didn’t take long before I threw my hands with that because I was not comfortable with the approach being taught by your “coaches.” The products worked but my coach and the people who represented the brand turned me off quickly because I didn’t see them as coaches but more or less as judges. Soon, I stopped using Herbalife products and gained all of my weight back. Stepping on the scale was the worst decision I could have made because it sent me on a downward spiral. My pattern soon began of emotional eating and binging during the weekends, then trying to get my act together and start meal prepping by Sunday or Monday. This cycle was depressing and frustrating.

Today, I found myself at work researching two diets in which I’ve noticed certain people on Instagram be successful with … the keto diet and the low carb diet. As I was reading different articles and writing down the tips and tricks of the diet, I became frustrated as I looked at the list of foods to avoid compared to the list of foods that I was allowed to have. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy healthy eating but who wants to live life this way? I can’t remember a diet that I was on that I actually enjoyed and was comfortable with. I feel that diets don’t prepare you for the instances of going out to eat with friends and having to flip through the menu 10 times to see what you can have and when you find the section “500 calories or less”, you are not at all looking forward to the dish.

After I finally closed out of all the tabs on my browser, I logged on to Facebook and watched a video where plus size model, Tabria Majors, was addressing some internet trolls after she was awarded a spot on Sports Illustrated. She states, “I’m Tabria Majors, I weigh 218 pounds, and I don’t care if you hate my body because I love it.” Though I have not reached this level of confidence yet, it is my goal to establish this type of self love. Like seriously, look her up .. she is pure GOALS! I may not be happy where I am now but I refuse to give up on loving the skin I’m in, whether I’m fat or skinny. Fat does not mean ugly and skinny does not mean beautiful, and vice versa. Society is constantly painting an image of what beauty is and should look like to everyone else which in my opinion, applies nothing but pressure. I don’t want to feel the need to cave in to that pressure and apply myself to becoming to what society deems as beautiful. Who I am right now is beautiful and even with the changes I plan to make on this self-love journey, that beauty will not change … it will only get better.