You failed everyone. You failed yourself because you said till death do us part. You failed your best friend because you told them for better or worse. You failed everyone that showed up that day and witnessed you make those promises. Not only are your parents and family disappointed, but your in-laws who made you their new child. Depending on your religious affiliation you may receive a lot of grief from your church.
But eventually you forgive the other person for everything that happened in the relationship, you forgive all the mistakes and harsh words, you even begin to forgive yourself. Although I think that's the hardest. And you start to let yourself move on. As big of a part it is of who you are, eventually you let yourself not be marked by it any longer. You make new friends, and it's your choice if you want to let them in on that part of your past. Your wounds heal, your family and friends heal, and everyone moves on at some point.
So after you forgive yourself and you realize that you do have to start loving yourself again, where do you start?
Personally, it started with my health. And that's what this blog post is about. The moral of this is not: "Post-Divorce makeover makes you more confident!" But in my journey of healing (which I am still on), when I started loving myself and the shame started to fall off, so did some weight.
When I was growing up and in high school my weight was very average. I didn't really exercise (I lifted some very light weights occasionally, but never broke a sweat), but I was an on-the-go teenager and didn't eat a ton. My weight always hovered around 120, I could have cared less.
When Matt and I got married and moved to Canada I started cooking and getting more interested in nutrition. My lifestyle changed significantly however and instead of working 8 hour days at Starbucks and running around town, I was in the house, without a job, without anywhere to go, without anything to do.... but cook... you see where this is going. I'm sure the pounds crept on slowly but I wasn't really paying attention. My jeans from high school stopped fitting, but I didn't really feel any different, I just bought new pants! And I never weighed myself. Matt and I worked out occasionally, but without an active lifestyle along with it, it wasn't enough.
So over the years my weight was steadily increasing. We both liked to drink alcohol and during the last six months we were together that increased VERY steadily. In June 2010 we spent a week on vacation in Mexico at an all inclusive resort. When I think back to the amount of horrible food and mixed drinks we were taking in everyday... it was probably up in the 5,000 calorie range. (AH!). While we were there Matt took this picture of me. You always hear peoples weight loss stories and they start out with "I saw a photo of myself on vacation and I knew..." I don't know what it is about the photo that you can't see in the mirror, but it was eye opening.
So after we got back I stepped on the scale for the first time. I thought I had probably put on 5-7 pounds, but when I saw 135 come up on the screen I gasped. Now let me tell you I know that this is not a lot of weight. But it is the most I have weighed, and I put it on in a pretty short time period. Also, I am 5'4, so 15 pounds was noticeable.
I immediately started on a plan to lose the weight. I went on a strict 1,200 calorie diet, I did a 30 minute circuit training workout everyday (kind of like Curves), and I was trying to walk 30-45 minutes everyday. I was starving all of the time and I felt hopeless that I was never going to lose weight, and I didn't. You can't starve your body and expect it to drop extra fat. It just won't work. At the end of the summer I hadn't lost any weight, I was drinking heavily everyday, and Matt and I were debating the end of our marriage. We separated in September 2010, and I moved home to Washington to live with my parents.
A lot of people lose weight when they get divorced. For me, I was only eating once a day because, well... it's hard to get out of bed and make yourself a nice big sandwich when you just want to kill yourself. There's something about eating that is such a self-care mechanism. I notice it in my habits even today, if I am unhappy with myself or my life, I won't take the time to make myself healthy meals and love myself in return.
Most of the extra weight came off in the first few months of being back. I wasn't drinking, I was back to my active lifestyle and job, and I wasn't stuck inside cooking and eating all day. I started to fit back into the jeans I wore in high school, it felt good, but I still wasn't totally content with myself, I knew that I still just wasn't trying. So about a year later, in August 2011 I joined 24 Hour Fitness and started working out. It was a really busy season for me, so my workouts were sporadic (on top of that I didn't really know what I was doing). Charlie was a great encouragement the whole time though. He knew that I felt better when I took the time to take care of myself. It really helped having someone else confirm that it wasn't selfish to take an hour to go the to the gym and work on myself.
I always wanted to workout with a trainer, but I just never got around to it until this May. I bought three one-hour sessions with a trainer named Ryan at my gym, and they were the best workouts I've ever had! But one of my prouder moments happened before we even started our workouts; when I got on the scale at our first meeting, I found out I weighed 113 lbs! Working out aggressively and consistently has been the key to loosing the last 7 or 8 pounds that I just kind of "held onto" since high school. Now that I am actually trying, I am happy with how my body looks, I'm proud of what it can do, and I take care of it by listening to what it needs (usually more carbs).
I hope that in a few months I can have even more results to show for my hard work. My goals now are aimed towards performance, having the strength to lift weight I never imagined I could. Because that's what my life is about right now. Pulling myself up by the bootstraps and becoming a stronger person than I ever thought I could be. Because after all the shame is gone, after all the weight, and guilt, and self hatred and pain, there is a new me forming...
And this is me today:
YEAH GIRL.
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