Skip to main content

A Gradual Journey Begins with the First Few Steps

I love bread. Carbs are, in fact, my favorite food group. Beyond that, I believe in body-positivity and health-at-any-size. I don't want anyone in this world to buy into weight loss/exercise obsessions because they feel pressure from any external sources including family, friends, media, society and beyond. So understand that my decision to make some personal changes in my life is in no way because I feel un-loved, under-valued or most of all un-desirable. I love myself most days and the days that I'm angry or sad with myself are built around mental health struggles with depression and anxiety and are actually in no-way related to my feelings about my appearance or my sense of self worth. Alas, I'm 46 as I type this. My mother passed away suddenly at the young age of 58 for reasons I cannot 100% confirm because we didn't have an autopsy (a decision I wish now we had pursued), for multiple reasons. 

I'm making some decisions to just focus on reducing my body size a bit so that I have more freedom, stamina and strength to pursue more consistent and desired activities that I love. I admit that carrying around 365 pounds of vibrancy, life and body weight has as I've aged made some mobility desires a little more stressful. I've been anywhere from 250-365 most of my adult life and it's mostly never held me back from doing things I wanted to do. Sometimes it would keep me from being able to ride some thrill rides which always made my heart sink because I love being able to enjoy every ride I want to take on at an amusement park. I've also discovered stress when I have tried some times to buckle the honestly small-sized seatbelts on an airplane. However these aren't the main reasons I want to make changes. They are added bonuses. For me, it's about hedging my bets on my own future, my own ability to pursue all the things that make me smile and feel alive and most importantly to outlive the expiration date the my Mother had. 

Do I know that I have a perfect solution ahead? Nope. Do I know that these changes will assure me these goals? Nope. But, these changes make sense to me in my head and heart. It's not going to be easy and I'm not going to do this perfectly. I have no desire to do this perfectly because I love food. Food is one of life's pure joys and if one day I would love to indulge in a french baguette I will make the calculated decision to indulge in that crusty and chewy carb-loaded heaven. However I can't argue that giving my body some intentional decisions to improve it's functioning and upgrading my processing systems inside isn't going to allow me to enjoy the things I love most even more. So a change, both gradual and seen as a long journey have begun for me. It's about making intentional decisions along the way, being mindful and most of all being kind to myself along the way.  

I appreciate your reading, your support and your encouragement along the way. Haters...don't even bother. 


In ✌🏻, ❤️ and 🙏🏻- ANNA


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Abandonment, Fear and Thanks

I woke up today very early. My significant other and I have a young puppy so that's part of the life at this time. Disturbed sleep. I woke up and just thought well, it's Thanksgiving, let's just be thankful today. I was in a good frame of mind. I had made the decision to just be present today as much as possible. But...in the wee small hours of the morning my always present depression and anxiety had other plans. I went to message a friend of mine. I connect a lot on Facebook so I went into messenger to just let her know I was thinking about her and I couldn't find her. At first I didn't worry, I figured that she and I were both struggling with the election stress and maybe she just went dark for a bit. I get that. I understand taking the mental health break if need be. Alas, she didn't just go dark.  Upon investigation I came to understand that I had a friend in real life that I care about deeply. I would try hard to check on her and send Erik over with various...

What I DIDN'T Set Out to Do with My Life: Polarize

If you've read any of my blog posts or have been through my dips in depression via my Facebook feed, you'll know that I think a LOT about what other people think. I'm trying hard to reverse that tendency but honestly the deprogramming to want to be liked by everyone (or most people); is a harder knot to unravel than I had previously thought. In many ways, I believe I have what is called a polarizing personality. It wasn't something I intended in any way, shape or form to have but as I do an inventory of my life and relationships I find that either people like me a lot or basically just hate me or want nothing really to do with me. I suppose I have a large brushstroke of people who are lukewarm but I have come over the years to realize that the toxic traits in myself that I continue to work towards uncovering or better yet evolving past really do tend to alienate people that I once honestly would have gone the distance for. I think it's my tendency to over commit the...

WILL IT BE PERFECT?

Expecting it to be...when expectation is the thief of true understanding.  Originally posted on former blog: 05/24/20 I think the hardest thing for me in this life is realizing that I see people for who they are in depth not just their mistakes, their choices, their anger, or their hate at times. I have always been okay EVENTUALLY just letting people go the way they need to after distancing so I could get my head okay with the fact that whatever about what happened wasn't really about me because I know who I am and I know what I try to do is always with the best intentions at heart. However I know that the need to distance at times offends people to the core. I know that people want to make up their minds to just hate someone for the sake of hating them. In the end, that's their burden to bear and I'm sorry they have to live with that always eating them away. I have been judged so many times for doing so many things that people were afraid to do. I have been judged for bein...