Ice Bath Weight Loss Being Fat.
I am not going to tell you how much I weigh but I have struggled with my weight since I was a teenager. As a child I was very very skinny so skinny that my doctor told my parents to basically let me eat whatever I wanted and to say my choices were not fabulous is an understatement. I chose Oreo's and milk, lots of candy and soda. My diet was a disaster. But after about three years I was no longer skinny enough to be below the charts for my age and height.
Then something shocking happened. I hit puberty and I continued to eat cookies and ice cream and cake. I continued to drink soda and other high calorie beverages and as shocking as it seems I got FAT. By this time my parents were in the middle of a divorce so the reality is they were both too busy trying to deal with their lives to really give my life any real thought. In order to avoid the pain of the divorce and the demise of my family I ate more. Food was tasty. It did not judge me and the reality is I ate so much so often that I was physically uncomfortable and when I was physically uncomfortable I did not have to deal with my emotions. When my stomach was killing me I did not have the mental energy to feel the heartbreak. I learned this lesson well and for seven years used food as a drug a way to distance myself from my emotions.
When I was around twenty-two I found different ways to distance myself from my emotions. Not a single alternative was healthy or life affirming however there was one side effect that was fantastic and this was I lost weight and I lost a large amount quickly. This got my parents attention and god bless them instead of asking themselves how I could be losing so much weight so quickly my father offered to pay me five-hundred dollars if I got down to one-hundred and twenty-five pounds. I am 5'8. I took him up on his offer and in know time I had gotten my five hundred dollars and surprisingly this money was gone in about forty-eight hours and I had nothing to show for my windfall. No one asked me where the money went.
Fast forward nine months. It was late at night and I was contemplating my life and realized I had two choices to continue down the path I was currently walking or I could move in a different direction that was much more likely to allow me to live. I chose life.
With life came food and I went right back into my destructive patterns. I had not addressed the issues that led me to eat as a teenager and I had not addressed the issues that led me to chose destructive patterns as a young adult so in a matter of months my weight skyrocketed. Once again bless my parents for while they did not ask how I had lost weight so quickly or where five hundred dollars had gone in forty-eight hours they wanted to know (especially my dad) how I had gotten so fat so quickly. I was not going to tell them that I had given up one bad habit for another so I told them that I did not know. My mother stopped asking me about my weight after about a year however it was an on-going conversation with my father until my late thirties and the only reason the conversation halted was because one day I screamed at him to never ever ask me about my weight again. By this time even though I was fat I had graduated from law school, gotten married, was a step-mother to a beautiful child, had a good job and was respected in my field and yet I still struggled with my weight.
The difference was I knew why I ate and the reasons where many. I ate as a reward, I ate for comfort, I ate out of anger, I ate because of anxiety, I ate because I was tired, I ate because I could not sleep. The reality is that I ate and I ate and I ate for any and all reasons. I knew why I ate and yet I continued to eat. The only saving grace was that I also did some exercise. I believe the exercise was the only thing that saved me from weighing over three hundred pounds because the reality is I ate enough to weigh three hundred pounds.
When I hit forty things began to change. The change was slow but there was a definite shift in my world view. All of a sudden I really did not care how I looked. From fifteen until forty I did a very good job convincing people that I did not care how I look and the reality is that no one has ever loved me because of my looks or wanted to be my friend because of the way I looked so early on I did have to develop a personality which I did and which I would not trade for the world but when I am completely honest with myself the reality is that I did care how I looked but because I was fat and found myself so unattractive I did not bother with make-up or having my hair done or worrying about my clothes. I also had no mirrors in my house and I would avoid them at all costs including not going to restaurants that had mirrors but like I said at forty there was a shift.
I wanted to be free in my body. I wanted to walk around in a bathing suit and really not care what people thought instead of just pretending I did not care. I also wanted to be healthy and be at peace with my body. So with a change in my attitude came a change in my behavior. The first thing I did was switch to an all organic diet and there was a very large part of me that wanted to believe that if I stopped eating pesticides and other toxins the weight would just drop off and would no longer be an issue. This did not happen. But I felt better. The next step was to start taking probiotics. Once again I thought if I just clean out my system I will be in great shape and the weight will disappear. It did not but all of my stomach problems did and this was life changing. My next step was to join a gym and get a personal trainer. This helped a little I lost a few pounds but I hated it. The gym was noisy and lifting weights was boring and the reality is that I thought since I was burning so many calories I could eat whatever I wanted. Guess what this is not true. So after losing about four pounds my weight stayed stagnant and I quit.
Then I found yoga specifically bikram yoga and everything changed. If you have not Bikram before let me tell you a little something about it. You do it in a room that is surrounded by mirrors. The room is heated to 105 degrees. The only person who speaks is the instructor and you sweat. I loved it. With that said I still avoided mirrors a real talent when you are surrounded but I looked at the ceiling and at other people and at the floor really anywhere but at myself. Then I had a private lesson. The first thing my instructor told me was that I needed to look in the mirror. I pretended to be confused of course I was looking in the mirror. My instructor was very patient and very firm and told me that I was not looking in the mirror and that until I looked in the mirror I would never really be able to see myself and that until I really saw myself I would not move forward. I looked in the mirror. It was not easy and I did not like what I saw but I realized this was it -- it was me in the mirror. My bad hair, my stomach that was quite large and very white (as if had never seen the light of day and yes I was able to see it because I only wore shorts and a sports bra remember the room was 105 degrees way to hot to wear a t-shirt) my skinny legs and my flat butt. It was all there on display and then there was a miracle. It was all OK. I also saw my eyes which were full of humor and intelligence. I saw my hands that held and loved babies. I saw my arms that carried groceries it was me in the mirror and while the picture may not have been perfect the life was pretty damn nice.
Since I saw myself for probably the first time in my life I have lost fifteen pounds. I stand up straighter. I am learning to love my body. I can see changes and most importantly I no longer have to hide and since I do not have to hide I know longer need to eat. For the first time in my life I have a healthy relationship with food. I eat what I want when I am hungry. I know longer have to eat as if there is no tomorrow. As if I will not have another opportunity to have creme brulee or an ice cream sundae. For me for the first time there is a tomorrow and it is a tomorrow where I still hope to weigh less then today but also one where I see myself.
Ice Bath Weight Loss.