On Feeling Lovely
[Note from Couple of Crumbs: We are really happy to present our second guest blogger, Lemon Drop! We love her post and hope you guys do too!]
Lemon Drop is the kind of cupcake who “feels it all,” as the artist Feist would say. Whether its a tv show, song, or a beautiful piece of writing, she loves seeing true honesty in all forms. She is married to her best friend and has a fun, yet stubborn little girl. She has taken the opportunity to stay at home with her daughter, which requires her to find a balance between personal time and her responsibilities around her home. She has a passion for cooking with natural, whole foods and dreams of one day opening a whole food cafe where she can share her joy of being healthy and happy.
When I look back on my high school years, I remember a girl who felt fat, ugly and unpopular. Sure, I had some fun times, but I could have had a lot more if I had been more confident. I’m probably not the only person who has looked back on pictures of themselves in high school and thought, “What were you thinking?! You were not fat!” I was probably more average than anything, but even if I had realized this then, it wouldn’t have made me happy.
What was it that made me feel this way? I’ve given this question a lot of thought. One of my biggest influences was the media and this picture they drew of how women were “supposed to” look like. I had a huge fascination with celebrities as a teen girl. I looked at certain female celebrities and wished I was them. Pretty, thin, popular and adored. I’d flip through my Seventeen magazine and admire all the beautiful models, because I wanted to look just like them. Looking within my personal life, I also recognize a few things that certainly added to my insecurities. While I may have been of average size among my schoolmates, a good number of my friends and people I associated with were smaller than me. I was insecure with the fact that I was about 2+ sizes bigger than most of them. And then there was growing up with my older sister. She was very pretty and outgoing, and had lots of friends and boyfriends. She was very good at flirting with the guys and that was simply not something that came naturally to me. I didn’t necessarily want to be like her since we had different desires in life, but I did envy the fact that she always seemed to have the attention of the boys.
From age 18 to probably 24 I went on a short “career” of dieting ventures. When I was 18 and still in high school, I bought my first bottle of diet pills. I remember when I realized I could buy them on my own. Early one morning, I took a little trip to Walmart by myself to avoid running into anyone I knew. Thankfully I never took diet pills continuously, but I definitely revisited them several times during this dieting “career”. I took them in college and actually hid them in a vitamin bottle so my roommates wouldn’t know. (Boy, that is really embarrassing to admit.) I also tried the “no-carb thing” and ended up binging on a box of low fat granola bars and a jar of peanut butter. I went through a day or two here and there of eating little to nothing — usually after a failed shopping trip for new clothes or after an episode of my issues with eating sweets in moderation. And of course I went the “natural” route too and tried a couple detoxes. I mean, I was doing it to “cleanse my body” but really it was only a side note to the main goal: quick weight loss. Whether it was calorie counting, taking “supplements” or joining a diet forum online, I went through a major “all or nothing” view on dieting. I felt like since I wasn’t anorexic or bulimic, I was fine. But I absolutely had some extremely disordered eating habits, which could be just as psychologically damaging as the eating disorders we all hear so much about.
During my second year in college, to my surprise, I ended up meeting and falling in love with the guy who would eventually be my husband. He made me feel comfortable being myself and he was the first guy that I felt I could really trust. After we got married, I ended up gaining some weight and he didn’t stop loving me, but he didn’t really know how to help me with the unhappiness that came along with it. He hadn’t had to deal with low self esteem issues himself, so he supported my decisions to buy diet pills and go on diets because he thought that losing weight would make me happy. I’d ask him to keep an eye on what I’d eat, which is a horrible thing to do to a poor guy who just wants to help the woman he loves. You can imagine the vicious cycle of me wanting a Twix and him reminding me of my diet and me feeling like he thinks I’m fat. Needless to say we went through a lot of learning about one another in those first few years and eventually we decided that we were ready to take the next step, starting a family. This was the point where things started to change. My dieting came to a stop since it was certainly not okay to take diet pills while trying to conceive a child. However it wasn’t getting pregnant that magically changed me. That only put an end to the dieting.
It happened to me after I had my daughter.
I was overcome with joy and happiness. I stopped caring so much about having the perfect body. I was so busy with her that I just didn’t have, or take, the time to dwell on my post-pregnancy appearance. I started taking daily walks around the neighborhood while my newborn slept in the baby carrier. These walks made me so happy and initiated a desire within me to be healthy, not skinny. Realizing that I really was overweight after having a baby, I decided to exercise more regularly and tried to eat healthy. What was different this time was that it wasn’t consuming every thought and I wasn’t looking at is as a diet. When my daughter was probably about 7 months old I realized that the last thing I wanted to do was show her she could never be happy with the way she looked because she saw her mom doing just that. I wanted her to see a mother with healthy eating habits, who could also indulge without obsessing over every calorie. I am a mother who isn’t perfect and doesn’t expect perfection. With all the media out there targeting women and how they should look, I want my daughter to have the confidence (and knowledge) to look the other way.
This realization brought me to make the conscious decision to accept myself and my body.
Since then, I have felt more confident and satisfied with myself then ever before. I started running because I wanted to and I found out that I really enjoy it. I ended up losing 15 pounds without even trying. I no longer make weight loss my New Year’s resolution because rarely does that actually work. I still have my days when I don’t feel my best but it doesn’t consume me. I don’t want to let insecurities hold me back from enjoying life.
Kris Carr, a crazy sexy cancer fighter/survivor and author said something in an interview that I’ll never forget. “All of us are going to die, but how many of us truly live?” The vision I had of myself before this self- acceptance was unattainable in reality, but in my mind that’s what I thought I needed to be in order to be happy. That is absolutely NOT truly living. I am now on a continuous journey of self-discovery and while it’s a bumpy road, it’s making me a better version of myself.
And because you can never have enough inspiration, the song Lovely by Sara Haze has also helped me along this journey. There is a line in this song that I say to myself often. I feel lovely, just the way that I am. When I first heard it I knew that was exactly what I wanted myself (and every woman) to feel. I know I’ll never be perfect and I don’t need to be. I’ve still got love handles and my tummy’s got a little pooch. But that’s okay. I do feel lovely - stretch marks and all.
Special Message from Lemon Drop: I want to give Funfetti and Red Velvet a whole hearted thank you for inviting me to be a guest writer here at Couple of Crumbs. It has been an amazing experience working with these two cupcakes and I am so grateful for all of their encouragement and support!
