Love YOUrself!

Since I just got done with a session at the gym with my trainer I feel like that’s the direction I need to go this morning. Oh, who am I kidding, I laid awake last night knowing what today’s blog was going to be about, wishing and praying that I could just go to sleep since 5:15 comes early!

Wow, where does my journey begin with my lifelong obsession with my appearance and yo-yo dieting and abuse of my body. Well, I can tell you, that it doesn’t start really young. My mom is an amazing cook and baker and we ate well growing up. I guess I have always been a foodie! I LOVE food and trying new things and going to new restaurants. I think I missed my calling, should have been a food critic! HA! It’s possible that my body image issues first were learned by watching my mom. My mom was always so insecure about her appearance and weight gain and food. I learned years later that came from her own issues within her marriage, I understand where it came from, and she was trying to heal herself, not aware that my brother and I would both end up having the same issues with fear of weight gain. It’s comical now, the first time my mom and I visited my brother in CA in the early 2000s, we met his friends and after spending some time with them, one said OMG you guys are all alike?! Awe thanks, but it wasn’t a compliment. He meant we all look in the mirror and see what is wrong with us and think if we eat we’re going to get fat. At the time I didn’t really think about it, but looking back, yes, we all did have an obsession with our appearance. I don’t; however, believe that’s where my poor body image comes from. It’s not my mom’s fault. My mom over the years turned that into education and has really studied food and supplements and what you should do and eat to fuel your body! I admire her for that! She turned her insecurity into a positive thing.

I really believe that it all started at age 12, when a family member walked in, looked at me and said “WOW! Look at the size of those thighs!” I remember looking down and thinking they must be really large. That began my quest to make sure they were always covered up and nobody saw them. In middle school and high school, I did everything in my power to get out of swim class so my classmates wouldn’t see my huge thighs. I wouldn’t change in the locker rooms in front of anybody. At church camp while the other girls wore cute little short sets to bed, I always wore a nightgown that covered my legs.  Then, in my first serious relationship in my late teens/early 20s, I was with a guy who always commented all the time about the size of my thighs. I even went so far as to tell him I would work them. WHAT!? Yep, I said that! That’s where my real obsession about my body image started. If I recall, I weighed about 115. Real big huh!? I was criticized about everything I wore, everything I put in my mouth to the point that I would hide food in my car, gorge myself, work out with crazy cardio and then take laxatives to not get big. Do you know how embarrassing it is to have a person ask you in public if you really need to eat that? It’s humiliating. I got addicted to laxatives and thus begin what I would call a mild case of an eating disorder. That was also around the time though that I met a trainer that would change my life 20 years later. When I first trained with him, it was only to keep the one person in my life who should have loved me unconditionally to not talk about my weight. I trained hard, but I wasn’t real into it, it was for the wrong reasons. If only I had all the money today that I had spent in the diet pills, diet drinks, work out programs, etc. that I spent in my 20s and 30s! I would have a large sum of money in the bank, but I was never truly happy no matter what size I was. I just felt huge.

My weight over the years has gone from 115 to almost 180 and all over in between. You know what was missing!? I NEVER loved ME! Never! My self worth and my opinion of myself was always the opinion of others! I let that dictate so much in my life.  Food became my best friend, my drug, my confidant, my spouse, my everything. When I found out I wasn’t going to be able to have a baby without help, my weight spiraled out of control. With every procedure, with every drug, with every shot I had to give myself, with every disappointment every single month of whatever we did at the time not working, I would get bigger. Not just from the stuff I was pumping in myself, but I would eat to ease my pain. Not by chance, during all of this, I met my brother’s trainer while on a visit to CA. She set me down one afternoon in my brother’s living room and had a heart to heart with me. We cried, we talked, we prayed and she said to me, you have got to dig deep within yourself, love yourself and realize your worth! Finally after realizing the dream of never being a biological mother was gone, being at my heaviest weight and looking like I had been blown up with a tire pump, but also remembering the words of the trainer/friend from CA, I set down in tears and sent an email to my trainer from 20 years prior and said please help me! I am ready to take care of myself! At 40 I was finally ready. I realized I was heading down a terrible road of poor health. High blood pressure, heart issues and strokes run in my family and that’s where I was headed.

It’s not been an easy journey over the past 3 years. I have had ups and downs and lots of tears and bumps in the road, but I am learning to love myself for the first time and to realize that I am worth it. The bible says to love your neighbor, but how could I ever love anybody else the way I was supposed to when I hated myself? Do we not realize that we are fearfully and wonderfully made?? God made us exactly who we are supposed to be, to look the exact way we are supposed to look and that is perfect!! Get up every single morning, look yourself in the mirror and tell yourself I am worth it, I am beautiful, I am strong, I am the best version of myself and go be that! Live the best version of yourself and live each and every day with purpose! You were put on this earth for a reason! You serve a purpose but if you’re not the best version of yourself, you may never serve that purpose and somebody needs you!! I am happy to report that over the past 3 years, I have lost 30 pounds of PURE FAT! I feel strong and athletic, 2 words that before now, nobody would ever use to describe me! I feel like with each day, I am healthier with my food choices, even though I am still that foodie, and I realize that food is our fuel, not our enemy! I am here to tell you, that if I can do it, all of you can do!! So get out there and go be the healthiest, best version of YOU!!!

With love for you all, Shauna