Before my first pregnancy, I was a healthy, thin, vibrant young woman. I had a tumultuous pregnancy, in which I gained a large amount of weight. This is such a common theme with women who were thin at one point, and found themselves in a situation where they are overweight or obese. I have three beautiful children, and I am so blessed by each of them.
While there have been other factors that have contributed to my weight (several other factors), one of the absolute major contributing factors is that I have had multiple miscarriages....and when I say multiple, I don't mean two or three; I'll just leave it at many.
While I'm certain it goes without saying, facing recurrent miscarriages at all different stages of pregnancy left me in a constant roller coaster of emotions. Each time I got pregnant, I fought with myself in an attempt to keep myself from getting excited. Invariably, I would fail, because who wouldn't get excited about the prospect of a new little life that you've been trying and hoping for? I would begin to be filled with thoughts of hope and excitement, only to have them crushed again and again.
During this continual struggle with getting pregnant, eventually miscarrying, taking several months off from trying, finally reaching a decision to try again, lather, rinse, repeat.... I found myself turning to the only thing I could bury my emotions in: food. Whether I was quietly celebrating finding out we were once again expecting, on bedrest in an attempt to protect that little life, or in mourning from failing to save it, food was always there with me. I allowed food to be my sole source of emotional comfort in the good and the bad of the pregnancies.
*Side Note: The best thing in the world for me is probably that I couldn't drown my sorrows in anything like alcohol, due to the constant cycle of being pregnant/not pregnant. If I can be 100% honest here (and I can, because it's my blog), considering how deeply I buried my emotions in food, had I turned instead to alcohol, I would be a raging alcoholic now and my life would have taken an entirely different path. While I am not happy with the fact that I allowed myself to become morbidly obese, I am so thankful that it is obesity that I'm battling and not some other addiction that could have easily taken everything I hold dear away from me.
When people ask me how I kept going - how I found the emotional strength to push through all of the miscarriages, I really don't have an answer. The truth is, I ran from it. I ran hard. I turned to food, and I didn't stop turning to food after having my third beautiful, healthy child. To this day, I struggle with fighting against using food as an emotional crutch. When I get stressed, frustrated, depressed, bored, happy, excited - you name it - the very first thought in my mind is usually related to food. I'm still not sure how to turn that off, or if that's even possible.
For now, I am taking my life one day at a time, and my weight loss one day at a time. I do keep reiterating to myself to keep my goals in mind, and to remember I'm either doing something to work towards them or I'm doing something to work against them. There is no in between.
My losses still hurt. I carry the memories of the hopes and dreams that I built around each one of those little lives that I held with me for a short time. The difference is, I'm facing those feelings, and a lot of other unfinished emotional business from my life. I'm allowing myself to feel the sorrow and loss, no matter how much it hurts, instead of stuffing it back down with food.
Anyone who ever says weight loss is as simple as calories in versus calories out has never faced a long-term, real life weight loss battle. Weight loss is as much an emotional and mental journey as it is a physical journey, and getting real with what got me in this boat is what is allowing me to get out of it. It truly is a journey to health, on all platforms, and in order for me to be able to achieve that health, I'm having to rid myself of a lot of toxicity that has been holding me back.
I've finally begun the process of letting those babies and a lot of other emotional baggage go, and the weight is going with them.
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