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Well, “after” is a bit premature. And not entirely accurate. I am, by no means, done with my healthier eating and exercising. I really feel like I’ve learned a lot and am now able to make more rational decisions about what to do when the crazy, body issue voice starts shouting.

Around the time that I started grad school, my weight and health in general went completely haywire. Part of that was to be expected. I simply didn’t always have time to exercise or make the healthiest eating choices. Part of that was just coping. I found it very comforting to spend the time that I was wasn’t working, parenting, or studying curled up on the couch, watching TV, and eating whatever I felt like eating. I don’t regret it. I did, after all, survive grad school despite the odds being against me. And for all of the things that upset me about the husband and I deciding to return to school, I can’t say that I didn’t deal with it the best that I could.

But that’s over now and like I said the other day I can only work on changing the things that I can.

Around this time last year, I was reaching my heaviest weight ever, which was alarmingly close to my 9-months-pregnant weight. You know, when I had a full-grown baby inside me. I did a lot of thinking about how I really felt about that, since my kneejerk reaction was, of course, “You’re a terrible, unhealthy fat person.” That’s the body issues talking. Was I okay being that weight? Was I okay with possibly getting heavier?

At the same time, I realized something very important: I did not want to diet ever again. Never. I had been dieting off and on since I was a little girl and I had had enough. I hated feeling hungry. I hated thinking about every bite of food beyond, “Will this taste good and is it a good thing to eat?” So I started working on changing my eating little by little to an overall healthier approach and figuring out how I was going to squeeze in some exercise.

It’s been (and still is) a very slow process. I’m still figuring out how and when to get more exercise in.

Numbers-wise, I haven’t lost a ton of weight. And I’m not worrying about it. But I feel a lot better and I look differently. I think I was getting to a point where I was willing to accept the body that I had, but separated the getting healthier from my weight, if that makes sense, and wanted to see where that took me.

So, about a year ago, I posted this picture to Twitter. The occasion was that I’d had a haircut and was really not sure how I felt about it. So I took to the internet for reassurance.

My shirt was obviously working pretty hard, but I wasn’t thoroughly unhappy with how I looked. I just wasn’t very healthy.

The other day, I happened to be wearing that shirt again and decided to do a comparison. Pardon the markedly crappier hair.

I like this version of my body, too, and I think it likes me back since it doesn’t complain quite as loudly as some of the previous versions.

So, there. Progress. Interesting to see, no?

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 6th, 2010 at 2:12 pm and is filed under life n'at, pictures. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.