My Journey

*This isn’t an inspirational story as such. Just your average girl struggling with her weight and eating habits. This will serve as my personal reminder of the struggles, should I stray away from the healthy path.

I have always been slightly on the heavier side. Right from my childhood, I was always about 10lbs heavier than usual kids. I had a tiny belly. My parents warned me that I would become like my extremely obese cousin sister. I used to feel bad, but I didn’t know how to not be ‘fat’. I never bothered asking anyone. I had this yoga teacher in school. (I was in the 4th grade). I asked her to show me some yoga steps to help me. She said I was a kid and this was “puppy fat” and I didn’t have to bother about it. Well she was right. I never thought much about it.

As I grew up, I was never the “fat kid” and nor was I a big girl. I stopped growing when I was in the 10th grade. At 5’4”, I was about 140lbs. I never really thought much about it.

When I turned 16, I suddenly noticed I wasn’t like the other girls. My thighs looked weird to me. I went on a “diet”. I tried to eat less and tried to cut out junk food. I lost about 10lbs. But I was doing it the wrong way. I experienced hair-loss. So I stopped because I was scared of losing all my hair. I gained all the weight back thanks to my immaturity and bad eating habits. My parents are very strict as far as junk food was concerned, but we ate tons of carbs everyday and I did indulge in chips ever so often..and as always, outing with friends meant more junk food. I often sneaked in junk food too..so that my mother wouldn’t know.

When at age of 18, due to a drastic change in my environment, I lost about 20lbs in half a year. Best part of it was, I had done nothing! I got checked, I was healthy. The doctor said it was just stress.

At 19, after my body had got adjusted to my new environment, I started piling on pounds again. Over the course of a year, I gained a lot of weight and I was at 132lbs. I never noticed that I had become chunkier until the day I was climbing stairs and noticed that my jeans were BULGING at my knees whenever I walked. I was grossed out. I hated that feeling. Something had to be done.

I started walking. Being naive, I thought I’d walk half an hour a day, and I would lose weight. I did it religiously for a week. Checked my scales. NOTHING. Out of frustration, I ate fries. A lot of fries. I was so helpless. I didn’t KNOW what I had to do to lose weight. I was ashamed to ask and couldn’t afford to go to a gym. Misinformed, immature and stupid. That was me.

I was oblivious to the fact that Google could help me, that there were millions of websites and resources online. It never OCCURRED to me that I should SEARCH for weightloss tips online. For me, the internet was just a place to have fun, webdesign, chat and play games. Stupid, right? I couldn’t agree more.

Somehow, on an eventful day, I did land up on Dustin Maher’s website. I browsed through it only because he was just too cute :P I subscribed to his free newsletters. One such newsletter led me to SparkPeople. I went on it because Dustin wanted us to. And that changed my life. I am so glad I did click on that link.

As I explored the plethora of information on Sparkpeople, I began to learn new stuff. I realized what “cardio” was. I realized what a “healthy diet” consisted of. I started following Coach Nicole’s workout videos. They were awesome. I did them everyday, without rest days. I lost about 10lbs. I was at 122lbs. I started receiving positive comments about how I looked, so I stopped working out. I didn’t feel the need to. Just thought I’d eat right and maintain. Well, I did. I maintained my weight for over a year. Everything was great..but I was still eating pretty unhealthy. You know, fried stuff, soft drinks, white flour products. Plus my thighs were still chunky.

December of 2011, 120lbs and new to tumblr. I came across 100poundsin100days. I saw that that girl was just as tall as me, but wanted to be 100lbs? As I read through her blog, I realized that I could try to be fitter, stronger, better. My thighs could get slimmer..it really could if I tried. A part of me that wasn’t happy with the way I looked, that part could finally be satiated. So I tried again. I did insaaaane cardio (not a good idea). Ate about 1000 calories, which was very less for that much amount of training (very foolish). And guess what? I fell sick! I had it coming, didn’t I? Yep. I realize that now. Over-trained and under-nutritioned. So I stopped. I was at 118lbs.

On March 12th, 2012 I decided to try again because I was sick of the way I was leading my life and was sick of all the unhealthy choices I made. But this time, I was determined I would never give up and I would be smart about it. I hope I am doing the right thing. I really hope I am. 

Anyway, I have come to realize that cardio isn’t everything. So I do strength training as well as core. I try to be as active as possible. I try to eat right, forgive myself if I binge and just move on. I really do hope I can be fitter, leaner and stronger this time ‘round. And as for my thighs, I would love to see them get leaner. But that requires patience, dedication and just never giving up. So I won’t. I won’t give up. I will be patient. And I will do this. I’m on my way to better days. I can do this and so can you (: