Leona

Last summer, I really got into making group shot pictures.  It’s a lot of fun to do, and is a neat way to show personality and interest of a person.  Well, my daughter was my first little victim, uh model. 

As you can see, I’m going to have my hands full with her in a few years!  She has such an attitude!

We had so much fun doing hers that she wanted to make one of Mommy.  So I sat the camera up for her on a tripod.  It was in my utility room, which is a level down from my kitchen.  Alissa chose all the poses and directed me on what to do.  It was fun, right up until we started editing to combine the shots.  The point when I saw myself captured on digital film.

I have always struggled with my weight.  Well, from puberty on anyway.  I hit puberty pretty young.  I don’t remember ever wearing a size A or B bra.  I went from nothing to size C like overnight.  Being one of the first girls to get a chest in the 5th grade made me really self concious.  It didn’t help that I got teased a lot.  Now I know that those girls that teased me were just jealous, but at the time it hurt.  The boys who teased me, well … we all know what was going on in their minds.  But I didn’t know any of this stuff when I was eleven.  This was probably the point when my self image started really detoriating.  My body self image that is.  And because of the pain of being teased on a daily basis, I turned to food.  Of course I didn’t realize that at the time.  But looking back, I can see it.  I started putting on weight, hitting that chubby stage.  Which just increased the level of teasing.

In high school, I was always the “fat” friend.  Of course, my two best friends were a size zero and a three.  So at a solid size 9, I thought I was huge.  What I wouldn’t give to be that “fat” again.  But I was only a size 9 because of how active I was.  I was a basketball player.  Well, really I was a bench warmer.  But I had to run just like the girls who actually got to play, so even though I had the tendency to be chubby it was controlled by the hundreds of line drills and bleacher zig-zag’s I did. 

My junior year in high school, I quit basketball and started working at a cafe.  Suddenly, I was no longer running for 1-2 hours a day and I was eating lots and lots of bad food.  The weight poured on.  By graduation, I was a size 18.  I doubled my size in 2 years!!! 

I went off to college and lost a little, then gained a lot.  I have no idea how much I weighed when I finally decided to do something about it.  I was 23 and couldn’t walk without losing my breath.  So I started moving, and before long I was power walking 3 miles a day, doing an hour of cardio everyday, and dropping weight like crazy.  After 8 months, I was down to 150 lbs.  I felt fantastic, sexy, beautiful, and ready to take on the world.  I meet my daughters sperm donor and reveled in a forbidden relationship.  Then I got preganant. 

The donor took off, and I was left alone with a baby on the way.  Once again I turned to food.  By the time my daughter was born, I had gained all my weight back.  I finished college when my daughter was nine months old, and by the time she was a year old I was running the cafe I had worked at as a high school student.  But unlike then, I didn’t have time to eat lots of bad food.  The weight started coming off again.

I was about 155 when I meet my wonderful hubby.  He was a customer and a really good one.  He asked me out and didn’t bat an eye when I asked if my 14 month old could go to. Now, before you get upset about me taking my daughter on a date, I didn’t expect him to want to go out when he found out I had a baby.  And we were a package deal.  I always said we were a “Buy One, Get One Free” package.  Any guy who wanted to date me had to want my baby too, or he wasn’t getting anywhere near me.  But he said that sounds great.   We went out to eat (why must all date include dinner) and then played minature golf.  My daughter got car sick and puked in his 1 month old truck.  He called me the next morning to ask how to get the vomit smell out of his truck.  We have been together ever since.  Both of us slowly gaining weight over the last 8 years.

I didn’t intend for this blog to be my life story, but evidently I needed to write it.  The whole reason I started this blog was to tell you about this picture and how it motivated me. 

Even though I have always been the “fat” friend, even though I have struggled with my weight for most of my life, I didn’t really see myself as big as I really am.  When I look in the mirror, I don’t like what I see but my mind doesn’t really focus on how large I am.  Something has to trigger that.  Two things are my triggers: 1–Trying on clothes, 2–Seeing pictures of me.

Because I’m the photog of the family, there are not  a whole lot of pictures of me.  So this picture was the first one I had seen in quit a while.  Seeing my butt from someone else’s point of view really woke me up.  But it took six months for me to do something about it.  Well, I had a couple of false starts.  A lot of “I will start Monday.”  What is different now?  You guys.  You keep me motivated.  Your stories inspire me.  You hold me accountable.  You cheer me on.  You give me idea’s.  I am not yet a success story.  But I am on my way. 

Ohh, and the picture that triggered me….

Sadly, these were some of my favorite clothes until I saw this picture.  I have not worn them since.  Today, I was going to put them on again.  I wanted to see if there is a difference.  I was going to set the camera up in the same spot, pose in the same position, with the same clothes on and see if there is a difference in what the camera captures.  But while writing this blog, I decided I don’t need to do that.  Even if I can’t physically see a difference, I know there is one.  The difference is inside me.  The difference is that I can walk up the stairs without becoming winded.  The difference is that I have peanut muscles in my arms.  The difference is that I look forward to working out.  I don’t have to have a number or a picture to tell me that I am becoming healthier.  And instead of going to all the trouble of taking those pictures and editing, I think I’m going to through in an extra work out!