Journey to a New Life.

I recently stumbled upon this tumblr account called Stop Hating Your Body. and boy did it hit home. It's basically a movement amongst young people on how they can learn to love themselves and their bodies the way they are. Here is their mission statement:

"To love ourselves, every last inch! To support others, help build positive self esteem! This is The Beauty Revolution! This is a place of encouragement, a place to talk about body image, a place for feeling beautiful. No matter what you look like, what color, what gender, what size or however many "flaws", healthy, not healthy, working on it, we are all human, we all deserve to be happy, we all deserve to love ourselves."

I've been fat my entire life and needless to say, I have little to no self esteem. But since Sam and I decided to change our lifestyle for the better, I've noticed some self esteem starting to appear. I'm not afraid to walk in front of people or by a person by myself anymore. I was always afraid that they would judge me or crack a fat joke at me. I hated to be seen at a restaurant or such because I didn't want the, "oh look a fat chick at a restaurant" label. School was especially hard mainly because kids are harsh as all hell. High school was the worse for me. I took advanced classes so I usually ended up with upper classmen. They were ruthless.

I often ask myself, "Why did it take you so long to finally do this?" But the fact is, I am doing this and for the better. My mom confessed to me the other day, after I told her how much I've lost already, that she used to cry at night because she was so worried about my sister and I. The thing is when I was at my starting weight, I never thought I looked bad. I always blamed it on the clothes I wore or the mirror, pathetic? yeah, I know. But seeing my pictures now compared to my pictures then, I honestly cry. I cringe at seeing them. Why did I never notice I looked terrible? Was it because I didn't want to believe I was that over weight or "obese" as the cool people say.

Here is a before and progress picture.

Those may not be the best comparison pictures but lord do I feel bad for Tangradi having to stand next to me looking like that. But yeah just so you get a sense on where I'm at. I've lost 65 pounds but still have 50 more to go to be where I want to be.

All and all I'm learning to love myself for who I am and accepting that I not on this journey just for appearance, yeah being skinny is great but health comes first. Heart disease and cancer unfortunately runs in our family. So biting this over weight issue in the ass now is a must. That is the main motivation for Sam and I.

I could never be where I'm at without all the love and support from my family and friends. I truly appreciate it.

I love you all.