I often read everyone's health and fitness posts about diets and recipes. I think it's awesome to have a platform to discuss things like that together as women. I mean, for goodness sakes - some women's blogs are only about health and fitness!
I love reading about others' success stories with weight and lifestyle choices.
Maybe because I have been there...plenty.
I'm a small girl. I'm short and most would consider me of appropriate weight. Maybe even skinny or too skinny! But it was a long road to get to a comfortable place with myself and I still struggle.
Being short I always gained weight faster than most people. Even in high school, I was aware of what I was eating - because If I ate what everyone else did..I would gain weight and they wouldn't. I wasn't ever comfortable in my own skin. And I was the smallest weight I have ever been in my life.
College was a bigger test. I wasn't active and was less careful about what I was putting into my body. When I walked across the stage on graduation day I weighed nearly 25 lbs more than I did the day I walked in.
I know this is supposed to be normal. But that wasn't a normal weight for my body type. In fact, I was on the bottom number for overweight according to a doctor.
But mostly, It was me. I felt more uncomfortable in my own skin at that point in my life than I ever had.
After college my body started catching up with my mind and I started to get really sick.
I was constantly having "stomach problems" which everyone in my family did. I just thought it was my turn. But as the year after school went by it got worse. I was hospitalized twice for what I felt was the most excruciating pain I have ever felt in my entire life and generally just walked around in lots of pain every day.
I got to a point where I could barely keep food down. One might think "great diet plan!" but it was the opposite. I felt HUGE. Even when I was throwing up everything I tried to eat.
We have some friends who came over every week for dinner. We were eating and I stood up and said "excuse me" and my girlfriend said "oh honey..do you have to go puke again?"
That was it...I realized that this was getting all too common and I was going to find a solution if it killed me! ...or before it did.
I went to doctor after doctor with absolutely no test results that gave any sort of an explanation until almost 2 years after the agony started: Wheat Allergy.
What!?
How do you just get a food allergy? Well...apparently it's common.
So, I immediately started eating gluten free. It was really hard at first - but I felt better than I had ever felt in my entire life after only a week. I started to feel comfortable in my own skin again (or for the first time)
And then that started to be my motivation. My weight eventually balanced out. I started to feel good enough to run again like I used to love and just stuck to my gluten free lifestyle. Indulging in moderation.
I now feel like my body is the weight it's supposed to be. And it's interesting because I'm a happy medium between my lowest weight (the one I felt so terrible at??) and my highest weight. But I feel good. And that's what matters.
I still think about what I'm eating often. And go through times where I don't make food or exercise a priority - and I pay the price. I start to feel ounces of the feeling I used to feel every day and eventually get back on track.
But my point is such. I had a weird random food allergy. But don't we all have some sort of an issue?
Find your balance.
Find yourself.
And if you get off track. Get back on.
Everyday is a fresh start.
And keep sharing your stories!!! Because we all connect with the "weight issue"
whether it's a "big" or "small" one.
2009
2012
XOXO,
Kati
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