Curvy and Nervy

90% of all my posts are derived from emails I write to J. 

(And no, he is not only referred to as J on the blog, he is referred to J in everyday life around our house. It's just so much more convenient to say "J" in a long whiny sort of tone than to say Jason.)

But honestly, as I'm typing him an email I start thinking this would be a good blog post. Then I start to really pay attention to my grammar, punctuation, etc. as if I'm really writing my post.

Copy.

Paste.

And done.

This email however needs a little prefacing.

My sister is getting married in August, in case you didn't know. And in case you couldn't tell from the lack of pictures of myself on this blog, I don't really like having my picture taken. Mostly because I don't really like looking at the _ _ extra pounds I have acquired (that word sounds so much more eloquent than gained) since I've been married.

Hence, my mother and I have started the HCG diet to lose said pounds for the unavoidable wedding pictures.

I know, I know... this diet is INSANE. It's not a healthy way to lose weight but guess what... it's a fast way to lose weight.

And the pounds... well they are coming off. But not without a lot of breakdowns in the past few days.

Most recently, 2 hours ago in the bathroom at my work. A vendor brought in freshly baked, warm out of the oven chocolate chip cookies and put them right on my desk. 6 of them, in their wonderful goodness sat in front of me while I panicked.

I had two choices

1. Sneak all 6 pieces of heaven into the bathroom, shrink to the floor, and indulge.
OR
2. Give them to the nearest Real Estate agent I could find and not look back.

After about 10 minutes of weighing pros and cons, I gave them away. Shortly after I sent J this email:

"I’m eating my damn orange and on the verge of tears."

He was proud of me. I wasn't, because it was such a hard decision. Seriously, a cookie? They are a dime a dozen- maybe that's why I've had such a great acquisition....

I finished my orange and the tears did come. I went to the bathroom and broke down. Not because I couldn't have my cookie - hello I'm not 5 years old. The tears were because doing this diet (which let it be known, I've never done a diet like this and have always been very skeptical) has not only been a physical challenge but a very mental challenge for me. And then I  sent J this email (which sparked the whole post in the first place):

"I’m feeling lots better now after my little break down. It’s just really frustrating that I can’t just be happy with myself. I have been this way my entire life. I have never been good enough for myself, no matter what I weigh, the color of my hair, or the brand of my clothes. The really tough part of this is that I’m putting my body through hell but I’m also having to realize these things about myself that I don’t like to think about. Not only do I need to work on the way I look but I also need to work on how I see myself because no matter how skinny I get that is never going to change the way I feel because it never has. Hailey got her bridal pictures back and I was looking at myself in a few of them and I thought to myself I don’t look that bad. My face is a little chubby and I don’t like that but that’s just me. That's always going to be my body shape, curvy.

So today I put a tiny amount of dressing on my salad and chicken at lunch. It was only like 2 tsp probably and the serving size is 2 Tbsp. So if adding a little dressing and Diet DP to my diet is going to make me lose 20 lbs in stead of 30 lbs, so be it. At least I will be somewhat sane. Plus I think I’m pretty proud of myself for resisting that cookie, so a little dressing was my reward.

So there!"

Now, as if losing weight wasn't a big enough challenge, I need to figure out how to be happy being me. I think I have a good start now. But I'm going to need a lot of help. I know I will need a lot of knee time in this endeavor. But I also know that if I can get my self confidence back I can be better at everything I do: being a wife, being an employee, being a YW leader, and eventually being a mother (that goal pretty much drives everything I do).

I'm not scared or embarrassed to post this on the blog because I know many, MANY other girls and women have this same problem. Hopefully soon there will be one less girl... (or woman- whatever I am now).

And yes, I did make Hailey's photographers take a picture of me during her bridal session. Not my time to shine? Yeah probably not... but if you knew the disgusting crap (literally) that we had to go through to get up to that window, you would want proof that you were up there too!