Unbroken

Oy, there it is.  What I unceremoniously call my fat girl picture.  I am, by nature, a happy person.  It prolly even shows in this photo, especially since it was the day after we adopted our CappiDog in 2011,  and I was over the moon with joy to have her eleven year old self with us.  (She's actually on the end of the leash that I'm holding.)  I always made people delete photos of me when I was this heavy because I felt so ashamed at looking that way.   In fact, this one still exists only because my father-in-law snapped it when we brought the new doggie to visit him and somehow I didn't make him crop me out of it or delete like I usually did..  ( I can be such a jerk.)

As superficial as it sounds to feel bad about how I looked on the outside, I felt even worse on the inside.  I was, indeed, so very broken.  My back hurt.  Always, without ceasing, and I supposed it would be that way forever.  The harder I worked out, the worse it got.  It was stuck in my head that if I just worked out harder, I could lose weight and maybe feel better.  After all, we had been vegetarians for fourteen years; it couldn't be our diet.  True, I could lose weight if I restricted calories, but I didn't find that sustainable.  I would go back to 'three square meals' per day and the weight crept back...and then some.  

And the back pain increased as well.  Other than working out, I found that I moved very little. Now that was awful because I really do like to do stuff other than work out.

Yep.  Broken.  I don't know what else to say.  

Number Three on my list of Twenty-Five Paleo-ish things is that I now look at people who are overweight and see them as broken.  I see myself in them, not knowing any better.  I think they may be hurting inwardly and outwardly, just like I was.

But I am blessed with a spirit that is not easy to break and a husband who puts up with me.  He approached me about giving up our vegetarian ways.  I was a jerk (yep, did I say I can sure be a jerk?) about it at first because we defined ourselves as vegetarians.    In the end, I was just curious enough about foods that caused inflammation and started reading.  It made sense and everything turned around for us.  We got rid of all the stuff in our pantry and fridge and went to the grocery store with a list from Robb Wolf's Total Transformation PDF meal plan.  (This may be the best twenty-five bucks you'll ever spend, I promise.)

The rest is history.   I feel great.  Srsly.  The weight loss of sixty (yes, sixty) pounds is just a side effect of getting healthy on the inside.  I can't say that it's been hard, but I won't say it's been easy either.  

More like an exciting challenge that left me unbroken.

And that challenge is what I wish for you.

Take good care, k.