Who keeps me healthy?

If you were to ask me who keeps me healthy? the first person that crosses my mind is the person in the photo below:

That’s me just after I graduated university and started my first job.This was not at my highest weight either and I doubt I have shared this photo before, I cringe every-time I look at it (I don’t think I even have a photo of me at my highest weight)

I was always smiling but I was never really happy because I was embarrassed of myself and it was difficult to share this with anybody. Most people knew I always wanted to lose weight but nobody knew how much it bothered me. Everybody thought it was easy, very manageable because most people I was surrounded by where normal...some said I was lazy, some said I did not want it enough but nobody really helped because nobody really knew how to. I even joined an exercise group for a month or so but the instructor was not very nice to me...I was the fattest in the class and she was very good at pointing that out so it was difficult for me to keep going for that class, again friends/family thought I was being lazy nobody realized it was difficult to wake up every morning put on a fake smile when I was being insulted each time I went to class...

I loved dancing but somebody very close to me said I looked like sack of potatoes and I stopped dancing. When I was in university my college friends would travel on motorbikes, I didn’t have one so I was always a pillion rider and my friends joked about how scared they were with me on their bike because they were worried about losing balance (thank god for T). People 20 years older than me compared themselves to me while pointing out they were thinner than me, I took this with a smile each time being a little more disappointed with myself. All those years I had one dream which was to just become normal. Most nights I would go to bed imagining how different my life would be if I was normal. I just wanted to look my age, dress like my friends, shop smarter clothes and for once feel nice about myself.

For very long I did not believe I had a chance of losing weight and becoming normal, by sheer luck my new work team had all health conscious people who ate salads for lunch and I joined them just because I did not want to be the odd one out and without realizing I was doing it I lost my first few kilos...that’s when I knew I could do it and then there was no stopping me. I took one small step at a time. I did it quietly; I did not join the gym (because of my previous exercise class experience). I did not share my plans with anybody because I was scared of failing. I did a lot of reading, a lot of trial and error to understand what worked for me. I changed my food habits, I started including a little bit of exercise. Over time I faced my fears and entered the gym. Every day I work to get over all the negativity that surrounded me when I was overweight.

I workout and eat healthy because I don’t want to go back to who I was, I like myself a lot more now :).

This is me now:

Not only my weight has changed but I have started to believe in myself a lot more. I believe I can be good at anything if I put in the effort. I believe I am worth standing up for myself and my choices. I like being able to run (I never ran as a kid/teenager). I like being able to play around and do a lot of things most people do when they are kids because I missed out on these things just because I felt too fat/unhealthy and embarrassed.

Getting back to the question of who keeps me healthy?

A reminder of who I was and who I want to be keeps me healthy. 

Who keeps you healthy?As usual I would love to read all about it.

Keep Reading I will Keep Writing   

Tanvee

This post was done as part of the American Recall Center’s “Who Keeps You Healthy” campaign.