How I'm Becoming the Best Version of Myself: Physically (Part 1)

Before I get into how I plan to become the best version of myself physically, I'm going to get a little bit vulnerable here and share my past struggles so you understand this part of my journey.

For as long as I can remember, I've struggled with insecurity and not loving my body. One of my first memories of this is standing in the bathroom line with my fourth grade class. I looked down at my jean shorts with red stripes down the sides and how my belly protruded over them a bit, then looked around at my classmates realizing for the first time that I didn't look like them. Now, looking back I can tell you that I was a little chubby and maybe the slightest bit overweight but back then my mind flooded with thoughts of why I was "fat" and how everyone probably noticed it and I needed to hide it. That day was the beginning of an unhealthy relationship with food an my body. I began wearing hoodies and jackets over my shirts every single day no matter how hot it was and this lasted for years. I'd tell my mom it was cold in our classroom so she didn't question it. As I got older, I tried every diet you can imagine from the military diet to the cabbage soup diet to "no white carbs" to counting calories. At one point I vividly remember I was tracking my calories on a sheet of paper (apps like MyFitnessPal didn't exist back then) and celebrating the days I could keep below 500 calories. I wish I could go back in time and hug me before shaking some sense into myself!

Growing up in a traditional southern family who was raised eating only what they could access on their own farm (eggs, garden vegetables, chicken or beef fried and cooked in lard, etc.), I had never been exposed to living a healthy lifestyle. In my mind, exercise was for when you're forced in gym class or for losing weight and I didn't have a clue what it meant to eat healthy. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not placing blame on my family. It was a generational thing but that meant I had to get to a point where I wanted to seek out information on what living a healthy lifestyle meant and that didn't happen until my adult life. It has taken years of research, trial and error, falling back into old habits, and sorting through false information.

Even as an adult, once I had the knowledge on what it meant to live a healthy lifestyle, I didn't always apply it and still didn't have a great relationship with food, my body or exercise. Old habits die hard. I would go through periods of time where I was extreme in "healthy" eating and exercising (way over training), burn out, quit and repeat. That cycle went on for years because I needed to work through the beliefs I had surrounding food, exercise and my body. When I would fall into periods of depression and anxiety or just hard times in general, I would fall back into the old habits so I'm sure you can imagine how far down I spiraled when the trauma I discussed in my "How I Got Out of the Dark Hole of Depression and Anxiety" blog happened.

I stopped taking care of myself in every way including physically. I either ate nothing for days or ate junk food until I was ready to burst. I did zero exercise. I probably went months without drinking any water. I felt absolutely terrible. The way I felt physically matched the dark hole I was in emotionally and mentally. Maybe the was subconsciously intentional.

When I began going to therapy and worked through my grief, one of the overarching themes that kept coming up during the grief processing and everything else I needed to work through was my lack of confidence and self love. It became apparent that I wasn't taking care of myself because deep down I didn't feel like I deserved it and when I had exercised or eaten healthy in the past, it was out of hate for myself and body rather than love. It took a lot of time, effort and therapy to learn to love myself confidence began to come along with it.

I now choose to live a balanced healthy lifestyle because I LOVE myself and my body and want to take care of it. It's the only one I get! I've created the physical goals I have to become the best version of myself for that reason, out of love, and I can't wait to share them with you in my next blog, "How I'm Becoming the Best Version of Myself: Physically (Part 2)".