The sooner you understand that weightloss is psychological warfare the sooner you become compasionate and easier on yourself. It is very seldom that you will find anyone who was once obese who is now in their healthiest form who did not have to slay dragons internally.
For example I’ve been obese for the better part of a decade. I wasn’t always obese but I’ve always been the ‘fat’ sibling or friend. When the label stuck I cared very little what size I wore or what I saw in the mirror. It became what I was known for, so why change it right? It was somewhat a sanctuary, and what made it worse is as the years progressed after high school I gradually got ‘fatter’ by the years and started being known as ‘that pretty fat girl’, you remember that phase right? Where almost every big girl you saw was just so beautiful. There was even a song out on it. To make matters even worse still was I had started going for the annual medical checks because, let’s face it, family history is the one thing that will make us shake in our boots when it comes to all matters health. So both my grandmothers had one or other form of hypertension and as we all know most times these are caused by lifestyle and at other times can be hereditary. So it also didn’t help my resolve in being the ‘pretty fat girl’ when every time I went for a check up I was given a clean bill of health. This is still true today, so what has changed?
I’m older, wiser and more informed now. But most importantly I have children to raise. HOW DARE I, by the way I choose to live my life, and letting insecurities dictate to me, how dare I rob my children the true value of a parent. Everytime I’m too tired, too slow, sick because of how I live, unable to kick a ball outside for longer than 2 minutes, can’t play hide and seek or even chase, I’m robbing my children. However I will admit that I have gained back majority of what I spent all my energy losing in the past 6 months while grieving the loss of my mom to cancer. It has been a journey where I have learnt more than anything to be easy on myself. Be that as it may I am causing more harm to myself than any good and that I know for a fact is not something my mom would condone being done in her name. Ok lets back track a little
My attempt to lose weight started in 2010. That’s the first time I actually heard people calling me fat. They’d been doing so for my whole life, but I never cared to listen. A colleague of mine at the time was on a weight loss program that was working so well for her, she called me fat and I listened because she provided me with a solution. That was my first diet. It was SureSlim, over the years I’ve tried, Herbalife, The Diet Everyone Talks About, WeightWatchers and diet and exercise plans from a personal trainer and some unhealthy crash diets here and there. You know how that story ends and which of these programs I ended up choosing.
To be honest it wasn’t until I had my son that I took the whole thing seriously. In September 2015 I had Bukhanye and by November 2015 my outlook on life, health, food and exercise had changed. With the coming of Iyana in May 2017 everything just got amped and in the first three months post partum I had lost what took me a year to lose after Bukhanye’s birth.
Then I gained it all back again. When my mom passed away I had very little will to do anything that kept me alive. Grief is a strange thing and a topic for another day. However as I’m learning to relate to my mom past the grave I’m awakening to a few things I need to do to stay alive for her, for myself and for my kids. At the present moment the dragons are larger than my resolve, my work station is littered with Herbalife products and junk. The battle manifest and neither I admit defeat at the moment, but with every passing day my resolve mentally gets stronger and to be honest that is where it all begins, the battle is fought first in our psyche and there I’m slowly slaying dragons again.
Having never been ashamed of what the scale says about me – well perhaps not never, I had to overcome that too. I’m here to state my truth and document my journey. As it stands these are my numbers as of this month:
The day I gave birth to Iyana I weighed 19 May 2017 : 120kg
21 May 2017 :113.8kg
Current- May 2018: 110.2kg
Goal weight: 70kg
I am talking in kilograms because that is the language most people understand in as far as weight and weightloss is concerned. I however am more fixated on body fat, muscle mass and water intake. I will put those below for anyone who cares how dire my situation currently is, and will probably dance and celebrate with me when the story changes.
MAY 2018
Body Fat: 49%
Muscle Mass: 48.3%
Water: 37.3%
If you know anything about the metrics above you will know that I have my work cut out for me. BRING IT!
My current short-term goal is to hit the 90s, get to the double digits. I haven’t weighed anything under 100kg since 2009 if I remember clearly. I know that by end-2018 I will have reached my goal.
What I am learning however is that this is a journey of consistency and persistence. But greater still it is a journey that starts with working on the being inside first before the external manifestation begins. Its promise lies in who we become after the battle.
To be honest yes being the best mom to my kids is the biggest motivation, but very very close to that is being happy with what I see in the mirror. That is so important, a lesson I wish I had learnt much earlier in my life had I known to listen.
Are you on a weight loss journey? What is your reason for losing weight?
