Part 1: My body rocks! (Self-esteem) Magical Happiness

Brace yourself this is going to be an incredibly long one as it was honestly quite an eventful weekend for a non-event weekend. I might break it down into a bunch of different sections though.

I may just call this one my weekend in pictures because yes, I took a damned lot of selfies.  I feel utterly embarrassed at times by my apparent obsession with photographing myself but I seem to not be able to help myself. I keep trying to rationalize it with the idea that in a nutshell I just keep taking the photos because I can’t believe the image that is reflected back to me.  Somehow I think that this can’t possibly be real and therefore I must keep taking photos in different situations, different lights, different outfits, anything to confirm what I’m seeing or more importantly show me the “real” me that I swear can’t possibly look like this.  It’s all very convoluted and messed up inside my head.  As anyone would expect someone who undergoes a serious transformation to possess messed up body image issues. The funny thing is, you’d think after 11 years of doing this I might understand the process a little better.  Apparently I don’t.

It’s not like this is the first time I’ve ever lost weight or looked like this.  I’ve been thinner technically on the scale at many other points in my life. I actually think I’ve been thinner in actuality as well.  I know this because I’m fairly certain the thinnest I ever got was around the time of my gallbladder surgery like 6 or so years ago.  I am guessing, I only vaguely remember. I remember being at like 132 pounds. I remember being frail and sickly. Of course I thought I looked okay at the time. Never thin enough you know.  But family members tell me I didn’t look all that good. Of course this was actually kind of true because that was 132 pound empty shell of a woman who had just lost all the weight and hadn’t picked up a single weight to make any strides to improve the appearance of my body.  I whole heartedly believe that is the biggest difference.  I also know in actuality I have been smaller because again when I started on this journey again in October of 2012 and initially lost all the weight, around June, July, August somewhere in there of 2013 (so about 2 years ago) I remember being 135 pounds. I had just barely started strength training at the gym and I know my size 6 old navy jeans were getting too loose and I bought a bunch of size 4’s. Again, I am not totally sure that I was as muscular as I am today. Logically speaking I now I could not have been given it was 2 years ago and I’ve done nothing in the last 2 years but pretty damned consistently lift so there is sure to be gains.

Anyway, my point is that for forever the size 4’s just don’t fit.  Size 6 is great. Been wearing those for the last 2 years pretty much all the time but the size 4’s were a brief period of time in my life where clearly I was at my “smallest”.  Well anyway, yesterday I was able to put on a pair of the size 4’s and probably could wear them.  But they might be just a tiny bit too snug for my liking.  Like squeezing into something that I shouldn’t really.  And today I am wearing size 6’s, and they are just a little bit too big for my liking.  So I am right there, somewhere in between the 4 and 6.  What this ultimately means is that while the numbers on the scale are not anywhere close to the 135 pounds that I was when I was wearing the size 4’s, by body is getting closer to that size.   And I honestly believe this.

I know this is all so convoluted but in my brain I’m trying to sort it out. Thus the excessive picture taking. No one ever claimed this was an easy or simple journey or once you reached any particular place you’d ever been done with any of it.  This is a lifelong struggle and battle.

This is what I realized yesterday. After a lot of picture taking and disbelief over what I’ve started to see in the mirror.  I am beyond a shadow of a doubt, inexplicitly the happiest I’ve ever been with my body right now. Today.  This is such an important statement/feeling that it bears repeating.

I am beyond a shadow of a doubt, inexplicitly the happiest I’ve ever been with my body right now.

Yes, I realized this weekend, yesterday in particular that I actually really truly am happy with how I look. For the first time I believe ever in my entire life.  This is something that I feel like I have only been able to achieve not because of muscles or exercise or sweat or any superficial reason but because I have learned to love myself.  To accept my imperfections. To love my flaws. To find the beauty in myself.  I am not perfect. There will always be things that are less than ideal, but this body is amazing and magical and so freaking strong both physically and mentally that how on earth could I not love it?

I want to freeze frame this time right now, this period of my life where I have come to love myself and my body just as it is because I am afraid that this feeling will fade away. That I will become negative or disillusioned with my body and I will start to tear myself down.  I pray that doesn’t happen.  I think this is part of the whole self-love thru selfie project.  Yes, if I can take pictures that I feel good about myself in then I can look past my imperfections.  I can embrace the confident, sexy, curvy, muscular happy 36 year old woman I have become.  My body rocks.  Yup, this is worthy of repeating again, My body rocks!  I never ever thought I’d say those words.  I have beautiful hard earned muscles.  At the weight/body make-up I am presently at, my abs are really starting to come out again.  And I feel so strong and sexy.  I feel like a beautiful mature woman who isn’t afraid of her own self.  Things any version of any part of me in my twenties was terrified of.

I don’t want to come off as vain or shallow of self-obsessed which is what I fear most of the time. That I am the world’s most narcissistic woman who can’t stop looking at herself. And then I try and preface that with but it’s because I am in shock with how I look or that it’s coming from a lifetime of being so unsure or uncomfortable with myself and then my brain instantly shifts to maybe that’s some bullshit excuse I tell myself to actually give into the vain part of myself.  Who doesn’t like being pretty or attractive? Who doesn’t like taking sexy pictures and actually believing you are sexy and in turn getting compliments?  Is that so horrible? This does lead me to a whole other topic that I want to talk about that happened this weekend but that is another post all together because this one is already going to be way to long.

So yes, I am learning to love myself, my curves, my figure, my fit hot rocking body. And why the hell not, I mean, I worked really hard to get where I am.  I have put in years’ worth of physically and emotional work to be this girl today.  One should note that the emotional/mental part is the harder part to conquer.  I am still working very hard on that. But as I type I feel amazing about my body and happy with the progress and everything I see. And truly whole-heartedly believe this is the best I’ve ever looked.  The numbers or percentages or anything else may not entirely reflect that but I know deep down in my soul that it’s the truth.  Because ultimately the sexiest thing about a woman is confidence.  And that is something that I am finally embracing. And apparently putting out there in the world and it’s giving it back to me.

So I run, I lift, I build muscle, I run some more. I follow my passion, my bliss, I put out the effort even when the effort seems impossibly hard.  And I am rewarded with a sense of self that is unparalleled to anything I’ve experienced in my life previously.  Women get better with age. I am living proof of that. The funny thing is all of this has less to do with my physical appearance than the quality of what is going on up inside my head.  I’ve certainly looked pretty damned decent at various points in my life. But my brain has never been wired so right before.

Perhaps this is that elusive thing where when you age you suddenly start to care a whole hell of a lot less of what other people think of you.  And therefore I can finally go, this is me, all of me, and I am pretty damned fabulous just as I am.  And this is entirely possible and my desire for every single woman no matter their physical appearance.  I want to reiterate that all of this has a lot less to do with my physical makeup than the shift that is occurring on the inside.  It also happens to be fabulous that I am finding my inner confident happy chick as we veer towards Maui.  I can think of nothing more amazing than finally going on a tropical beach vacation and not giving a fuck what other people think about my body because I believe my body is beautiful and worthy enough to walk around in a bikini.  This is the one goal I’ve always secretly longed for. Sure I’ve been to beaches and worn bikini’s but I’ve never had the confidence to really let go and enjoy myself.  And I envy all the women of all shapes and sizes who so freely walk around and love themselves and they are not any less beautiful or worthy because of their physical size.

I am excited to feel this good because it just makes me want to keep going.  Not on some level where I obtain a smaller number on the scale. This is only one measureable tool of things that are fairly irrelevant at this point in my life.  But to continue to feel better and better about myself. To continue to make the choices that make me a confident happy woman.  That get me closer to the elusive true self-contentment and love.

And for what it’s worth I am not entirely shocked. I am sitting around 147 on the scale. Certainly not my thinnest weight but it seems that right around 145 is this magical sweet spot for me.  Where things feel really good. Where I can run my hands across my body and feel the muscles and see my abs at times and I feel small and tiny.  145 is a magical place. It does however require a lot of work and discipline on my behalf to get there.  There are no shortcuts on this path.  It’s all about the hard work and consistency and determination and dedication. You know all those buzz words you see. But they are true.  145 is not a place that I can generally naturally live without working towards it.  It is WORTH it.  The way I feel about myself right now is worth every amount of effort I’ve put out.

It’s this dang marathon training plan.  It’s part of it. The feeling of working toward something, achieving something, is really good for the mind.  It’s making me love and appreciate myself and my steadfast determination in a way nothing else ever has.  I just feel good!  Plus all the cardio is helping me shed some of the extra flab which is making the muscles pop out as I continue to lift and things are just getting so much better.

With all that said, here is the series of selfies I took this weekend that made me just love myself. And the best part is that I swear I felt and looked better in person than in the pictures and that is just magical.  To love yourself and your body is insanely magical and a thing I have really never experienced.  So here they are, the magical photos and then I will write another post about my actual weekend.

And can I just talk about this one for a moment, because this is a transformation. And I was just blown away for a second by how far I've come. This is what sparked it all...