Correction: Nothing Tastes as good as HEALTHY feels!!



Spring 2008

Spring 2013

 Bonjour Bloggies and Bloggettes!!

"Nothing tastes good as skinny feels"-spoken by supermodel Kate Moss... Maybe she is a model to some people, I however have a beef with that. (pun intended)  Now grab a cup of organic tea and a snack, heck maybe a whole bowl of popcorn because this is going to be longg post.  You've been warned!  Feel free to take breaks to do squats/jumping jacks/down-dogs because I myself can't sit for this long!  Dont feel obligated to read the whole thing, I think this post is as much for me as it is to motivate myself and other people to start living a healthier lifestyle in mind, spirit, and body! 

       Let's go back to my childhood where thankfully I grew up with a mom who was extremely health conscious, and even though we didn't have the financials to have everything as natural and organic as possible, we had the absolute best that my parents could afford.  Back then however, I thought it was something to be embarrassed of, I was one of the only kids at lunch who had whole wheat bread with my homemade lunch while everyone else was eating wonderbread and soda.  We were given vitamins and other natural remedies/supplements and frequented holistic health doctors, chiroproacters, etc. when my peers were on antibiotics and used tylenol, pepto bismol, and tums on the daily.  I, being your regular teenager, was fueled by the mindset of wanting to fit in and that meant eating/drinking/etc what all my friends got to indulge in! By my high school years I was a fast food frequenter, my post-sports meal was a chicken sandwich  and fries at Mcdonalds and if i was feeling spontaneous an infamous blizzard from Dairy Queen.  Taco Bell was a late night snack and breakfast was a meal for old people and babies.  I used the excuse that I was young and had my whole life ahead of me to start caring about my health.  Sidenote: while in high school I had bronchitis/pnemonia twice, colds were a frequent visitor, and although some may have considered my weight "normal", now looking back you can see those processed foods and unhealthy habits written all over my body. 

    Well fastforward to getting pregnant, which luckily my metabolism was through the roof and I was waitressing until I was 6months along, so I was able to stay in shape.  However, once I quit that is where the motivation to stay active went down and my weight crept up...I was pregnant at 17, depressed, and my life consisted of television and internet. All day.  Yes, I had myself convinced that walking downstairs to do laundry, and light housework ONCE a week was enough exercise to counteract my sitting on my ass downing chips/frozen dinners/takeout/you name a processed food it was going in my body. So while all my friends were enjoying their senior year of high school I shut myself into our two bedroom apartment where I completed my school while snacking to counteract my own self-pity. To give you numbers...first 6 months of my pregnancy I gained 5lbs max(I had lost some weight in the beginning so it averaged out..)...months 7,8,9 a whopping 15lbs.  That may not sound like a lot for some, but truth is probably 5-10lbs of that gain had nothing to do with pregnancy and exclusively to my lifestyle. 
   November 2007, my beautiful Callie came into the world, and postpregnancy I immediately was feeling good.  I had a babyhigh, and was positive because everyone told me breastfeeding was going to melt the weight away, and I was down 5lbs after the first week.  Unfortunately, birth control pills overtook my hormones and depression set in once again and the same pattern of sitting alll day in front of the tv feeding myself and my baby, I even had pushed some of the laundry/cleaning duties onto my poor husband.  My activity level was nonexistant.  I could drag out this part but hey you get the idea, I was unhealthy, unhappy, and the scale showed it because 3 months postbaby, february/march 2008, I had gained 20lbs.  My brain was full of this horrid fogginess, an aftereffect of the drugs and garbage that shouldn't even be considered food.  I had my mom, giving subtle weight loss hints, and I thought all hope was lost, my biggest supporter calling me FAT.(Today I love my mom for doing this because she always is/was my biggest supporter and I know she was trying to put positive motivation in my life.  Unfortunately when you are in the dark for so long, sometimes, the slightest lightbeams can be harsh, and hurt, because your eyes haven't had the time to adjust.)
   By July 2008, add another 10lbs, and this is where I give total credit to my family/very few friends who put up with the fat, mean bitch that I was.  I'm sorry, I was miserable with myself and took it out on a lot of people.  Plus my relationship with Christ was put on the back of the back burner, and without feeling that love in my life I turned bitter and shut myself off to the world.  My disposition reflected the food I ate, it looked good on the outside, but if you dared to get close enough you could see the artificial coating, and the inside was just plain ugly.  Now that you have some background of the rocky bottom I had hit...lets get to some of the good stuff!!! 

    August 2008-I was still in my birthcontrol daze and thank goodness, the one clear thought I had, was, when we decided to try for another baby!  So the evil pills went in the garbage..  It took a few months for the drugs to move out of my system and the fogginess started to lift.  I started becoming more aware of the chaos that I had created in and for myself.  Then in February of 2009, I sincerely believe God threw me my lifeline in the form of another beautiful baby growing inside of me.  From that, it is my view and motto, that a healthy body starts with a healthy mind.  It is my belief that you need to, first and foremost, have faith, and in my personal life battles, without faith and the neverending love of my savior, Jesus Christ, I would not have been able to clear my head in order to start healing my mind, soul, and body.
    Luckily, pregnancy yet again jump-started my metabolism, where I lost about 15-20lbs in the beginning. And as that weight went out the door, slowly but surely did my bad habits.  I brushed off the dirt from the rocky mess I was in, looked up, started climbing towards a better me.  I started watching what I ate..Now UNDERSTAND ME, in my world watching what I ate/eat does NOT mean starving myself/depriving myself or anything else people try/have tried calling it. (just because you see me once a month does not mean you instantly know my eating habits)  Personally, for me, watching what I eat/ate meant/means, choosing better food options by researching nutrition and actually being knowledgable about what I was putting in my body and also by slowing down to enjoy the food I was intaking to refuel my body. By that process, the portions of my meals/snacks went down with the quality of food going up. 

    Next in this transformation was physical activity. Even though pregnancy was draining my energy, there was that voice in my head telling me, "You are better than this, this is your opportunity for a fresh start, a new beginning to a new chapter, and don't let life run over you again."  So my inner fighter surfaced, and I started being more active by trying many different types of exercises...my personal favorite being yoga, which I did as often as I could, sometimes it was daily, sometimes once a week.  Now this was not an overnight success, I still had trouble kicking the fast food/junk food habits/television/internet obsessive habits. So, during commercial breaks I would run up and down the stairs, do lunges, sun salutations and other exercises and then between shows I would take walks.  Was I making all the right choices? NO! But the percentage of wrong choices was going DOWN and that was key!  By the summer of 2008 I felt more alive than I had for the past two years, and I knew I was heading in the right direction.  When my next little beauty,miss Charlotte, arrived in November I had gained 0lbs from prepregnancy weight, BUT i gained 10lbs of the original first trimester loss.  (I have to take a short detour to point out that Callie weighed 9lbs 3oz and Charlotte came in at 8lbs 4oz, so for my body I didnt need to gain a lot to produce a healthy baby!)
   Now, I dont mean to toot my horn but I came home from the hospital feeling so amazing!!  I lost weight before leaving the hospital(hello 8lb baby?!) and I had crazy amounts of energy where I didn't feel like I just had a baby!  However, I knew I had only reached a milestone in my journey and there was definetly rough terrain ahead.  Thanksgiving was just days away and Christmas right around the corner, and all my thoughts were about the holiday goodies from pies, cookies, to schwans peppermint stick ice cream.  Yet this is where I knew progress of of my healthy lifestyle goal had officially been made.   My self discipline kicked in and YES I did eat all of the above and more....BUT in moderation.  So, by the time I had to bare all in a bikini for spring break 2010, I had to do some shopping because I was down 30lbs pre-Charlotte-pregnancy weight!  I cannot express how good it made me feel to hear someone say, "Wow  Melanie, you look really good.".  It had been so long since I had felt any positivity towards myself, and that was the tall, refreshing glass of water I needed to continue my climb.
   Enter late spring of 2010 and my husband's graduation from college rerouted us on a huge move from Michigan, my childhood home, all the way to Florida....and that's where it ends...JUST KIDDING!! haha This is where I take a break..you get a break...and I will post part two of this series very soon! So stay tuned to find out if the move knocked me off track, and other interesting little bits including personal health and nutrition products/ideas/etc that lead me to where I am today! 
   
This is not a tell-all, and I'm not looking to reveal all my lifes comings and goings. However I have felt guilty for a while because I am the one who shut out and hurt people during those couple of dark years, and I want to again apologize to any and all I may have harmed with words or deeds.  These posts are to shed light on my struggles, as personal motivation, and to offer motivation to anyone else who is/has been in a similar place of doubting their self-worth, or any other struggles with mind and body issues.

Thank you Jesus for loving the world, one can only hope to reflect that sort of love everyday...and for giving me the courage to open up more about the darker years of my life.  I want to dedicate this little series to my family and friends who stuck by me through thick(literally.) and thin.  Their continuous love, understanding, and support is what drives me to be a better person everyday. 

Have a blessed day!!
Lots of Love!
xoxo
Melanie