Wallflower

Growing up, I was the wallflower. The fat girl that was too shy to talk to anyone outside of my little friend group.
I hated gym, hated sports and dreaded the mandatory swimming in middle school all due to being self-conscious and uncomfortable.I remember my parents deciding that I needed to be more active during summer breaks, so I was signed up for softball several summers in a row.
It wasn't too horrid if I don't count the twisted knees and ankles and the broken fingers. (We were a bunch of tomboy-ish country girls...playing nice was not our thing. Even the biggest of the boys' teams wouldn't square off with us!)
I also remember my stepmom starting me on diets at roughly 10 years of age. Whatever the fad diet of the time was, I was made to go on it. She'd have me stand side-ways in front of her friends when they came to visit so they could discuss how big I was. It was mortifying.
As I got older, I became the 'little sister' of the group I hung out with. I can't even begin to count the number of times I heard the phrases...
"You're cute, like a little sister."
(to this day I hate being called cute. The term cute is for puppies and babies!)
And the absolute worst,
"If you just lost a few pounds..." (I I lost weight then what...you'd date me? Want to be seen with me? Ugh!)
Why do I bring this up? Just setting the stage I suppose.
It seemed that my whole life I was fighting to lose weight. Fighting to become the image of what everyone else thought I should be and learning to hate myself. Dieting and self-denial became my way of life. Depression and binge eating were my closest friends.
After the birth of my daughter, I was diagnosed with M.S. All of a sudden I not only had friends and family telling me what a failure I was, now I had the whole medical community on my case as well. I was sent to nutritionists, dieticians, exercise centers, etc. They all shoved the same ideas at me... weight loss was difficult, weight loss was about demanding absolute commitment to whatever pills/drinks/food regimen they prescribed with zero deviations.
Eventually, after failing so many times, I decided to check into bariatric programs. Those were terrifying to me and even more demanding. It really felt like I had been set up to fail and was successfully doing such with my life.
Two years ago, I separated from my husband of 20+ years and moved back to my hometown. After wallowing in self pity and chocolate, I decided that it was time to make some basic changes. The two biggest things I did...
1. I started eating what I like. I got rid of the heavy foods I had been cooking to please others for the last twenty years and started taking in lots of fresh veggies, and
2. I started making myself get out and walk. Not a set amount or trying to break speed records, or anything like that, just getting out of the house and doing gentle movement.
The changes weren't huge, or hard to maintain. They were more a change of my mindset and just allowing myself to do for me. The results of that are a 50lb weight loss so far this year. No stress, no strain, no fad diets, no crazy workouts, just some basic little things and it has made a huge difference.
So to all those people over the years that tried to bury me in self-doubt, negativity, and all around misery... I salute you with a huge, wet, raspberry blown in your general direction!