Transparency. That is me, that is the reason for this blog and that number is something I own. It is my weight currently (give or take a piece of pie and a good nights rest). I am not proud of that number. In fact I had put that number far behind me when I took on the low carb high fat lifestyle. However, life happened and just like that, 180 is me again.
Now, when I tell people that I am 180 lbs, they automatically look at me like I am crazy and that I am lying. Honest to God, that is my weight, I am fortunate that I usually carry it in areas that I can hide it pretty well, but my knees feel it, my clothes feel it, I feel it and that weight is a lot on my 5’5” frame. I am overweight and nearing obesity and I feel it.
I am the WORST diabetic known and I claim that. When I feel like I am not eating right, and I get overwhelmed with life, I stop medicating. I stop trying and instead I just eat. I eat whatever I am really not supposed to have and I break all the rules when it comes to eating all the foods too. I eat more when I am stressed and let me tell you, life has been stressful, really freaking stressful.
It is not just stress or even all the death that we have dealt with in our lives, it is the complete and total lack of actually focusing and instead being pulled in two million different directions, of which, none are supporting my real needs. When you are in a million pieces, it is hard to decide which pieces are most important. I knew that my kids were important, I knew that my job was important and my blog was important, I knew my husbands mental health was important, I knew that keeping a roof over our head was important and I knew that I was falling apart and serious changes needed to happen. Shit hit the fan in September. I am not ready to share all the details, but it was terrible and eye-opening and raw.
It was necessary. When you are broken in a million pieces and you choose to take each of them on with only parts of you, you cannot be successful. How was I supposed to manage a household, our family, the bills, my job, this blog, my husbands mental health, our actual health and everything else without true focus or a good foundation? I was doing it all by myself and I had made that choice a long time ago. I pushed away the support that I had because I am an independent, strong woman and because I thought my partner wasn’t fully focused because of the tremendous loss he had. So I took it all on. I did it all. For nearly 10 years, it has been me…parenting…3 people, when I only needed to parent 2.
So that mass of 180 felt like more. There was more than just physical weight on my shoulders and I had put much of that weight there. I had made the choice to take on that weight, to not enter a partnership fully, to not communicate, to parent 3 instead of 2, and to try to be everything. It didn’t work. Everything crashed, this world that I had created, crashed and everything that I cared about truly became very apparent. It was time to lose some weight, to partner up, to trust, to love myself and my life and to be better.
This family deserves better. We deserve better. I DESERVE BETTER. Hold me accountable folks, I am going to need it as I complete this 180 degree flip.