Healthy Happy Just Uplevel with Me

A look to the past

Here's my story, how my negative body image started and my reason why I started this journey.
Can you relate?

and this is my story.

In early years my cousins would laugh out my bedroom window calling me fat and no fun.
In middle school my friends mom said to my friend "when will Jaclyn lose weight"
My classmates asked "have you called Jenny yet" on a daily basis.
I was excited when I ate my first foot long sub because I thought that made me mature, and wiser. I forced myself to over eat every time we had subs.
My parents would question me when my plate was empty and made it seem I should still be hungry "have more" Dad said.
My adult coworker in high school asked "are you always hungry"

What's all the same about these is All of these happened under the age of 16 and were said by people I looked up to, most of them women, like me.

I didn't always listen to these words and I don't exactly remember when I started dieting for the first time. It was probably when my parents started a soup diet and I tried one bowl and decided I'd start next week.
The next 15 years of my life consisted of me still eating my emotions but now I counted calories on my phone app. Google told me I did not have to exercise I just had to cut those calories ALOT.
That's what started the restrict and binge cycle. Sometimes that meant restrict all day and binge all night. Others that meant I'd "succeed" at my diet for a week or 2 or sometimes months. And go back to eating and then eating too much and going back to my old ways completely just to have gained a lot of weight.
The cycle continued into adult hood. But by then I had no self esteem.

In January of 2019 I started another diet. This time realizing that I had to exercise but could eat anything I wanted until I was full. I linked that I physically and mentally felt and looked my best when I was working a physical job and exercising without realizing. But then I got a new job sitting at a desk all day. I didn't exercise at all. The cycle continued- I started emotional eating again and I had 0 confidence.
In January 2019 I started my fitness journey. I counted macros instead of calories. I told myself to eat vegetables first then protein and eat as few carbs as possible (among other food rules). I allowed myself to have cheat days, enjoy pizza but I had to earn that with a long gym session (side note/ news flash, this is NOT a healthy mindset). I dodged family and friend for the gym and felt shitty when I couldn't complete all of the prescribed sessions in the fitness app I was following. I learned that moving and exercise made my body feel good again. But my journey was not done, I still had no balance.
In September of 2019 I went back to college at the age of 24. I moved to a new city. I didn't know where any gyms were or which one was the best so I did not go for 4.5 months. I started to feel terrible. I started to stress eat due to school- surprise emotion eating again.
In January of 2020, I had gained 15 pounds and weighed 175 pounds so I found a personal trainer. She told me I was not eating enough. That my body was in starvation mode and it was trying to store energy (fat). She gave me a eating plan that gave me lots of different "healthy"  foods to eat and macros to achieve but left out the good stuff like pizza and dessert.
She had me eating breakfast which I never did before to kick start my destroyed metabolism. And I went from eating 1100 calories a day to 1800 a day. I started to feel uncomfortably full all the time, like I felt when my parents would convince me to have seconds because I didn't think I knew when I was actually full.
Reading the meal plan I did not like, I listened to eating breakfast and eating throughout the day to fuel my body but fairly quickly my mind went back to that old mentality- 1 last unhealthy meal before I stop eating "bad" food forever.  The pandemic started and I was still binging those last meals telling myself I'd start tomorrow and over eat every time(for months). My personal trainer stopped seeing clients, I finished school and returned to my desk job.
Fast forward to February 2021 and I weighed 190 pounds. That number hurt a lot. It is not the most I've ever weighed but it was sure close. Acid reflux and muscle and joint pain came back and my confidence was very low again. I started following some intuitive eating Instagram accounts which started with deleting the food calorie or macro counting apps and putting away the fitness tracker. Once weather warmed up I started walking with my dog and boyfriend once or twice a week which slowly built up to every day walks that I looked forward to. But my joint pain from sitting and mental state kept getting worse and worse. I dove deeper into the intuitive eating theory. I threw away my scale, unfollowed toxic social media accounts and donated all my clothes that did not fit. I needed to get a handle on my self confidence and that was my start.
Through reflection I realized I never want to be that person who prioritizes the gym over friends, family and memories BUT I need a balance. I need to honour my body. I need to feel better physically and mentally and part of that is joyful movement that is sustainable.

Welcome to this journey - you are all caught up and I'm excited for you to find freedom too.

F U diet culture