Lindsay's Blog: 1/3/10 The Beginning...

This is the first post to mark the beginning of a new journey for me. It's the new year, a new decade and the opportunity for me to mark a new beginning to my life. Shortly after entering Marquette University, I figured it would be a good time to change things about myself that I didn't like. I felt like it was the perfect opportunity to have a new beginning in college where I didn't carry the burden of being self conscious of the way I looked. In high school I struggled with confidence especially with because of negative influences in my life and a mind that was easily manipulated and affected by media and the typical high school peer pressures to have to be a certain way. I just didn't fit the mold of the desirable girl I always wish I could be.

There is too much history to explain how I got myself to the point that I am at today or the emotions and events that are engrained in my head from how I have made myself suffer and waste precious life away...but the short version is that beginning with my second semester of freshman year in college, I started to develop I guess what you can call an eating disorder or at the least eating disorder symptoms. I felt it necessary to cut down dramatically on food intake and workout seven days a week. I joined fitness classes, stopped going out to drink or hang with friends and began writing down everything I ate to keep track of my calorie intake. I felt myself to slowly begin to detach from others and isolate myself. Being so close to my family and already homesick, I felt even more alone than I ever did.

It worsened sophomore year though. Although I lived with a good friend of mine that I met freshman year, I was becoming obsessed with working out, especially because I was seeing the pounds shed. I would workout multiple times a day, I made sure I never missed a workout class and barely would have fulfilling meals. I can remember calling my mom crying because I was so weak that I didn't know if I could walk to class. I was fatigued, run down, and obsessed. I had anxiety eating things out of the ordinary, I was constantly counting calories in my head. I never wanted to go out with friends to eat somewhere because it was out of the "norm" of what I usually did. I joined a sorority my sophomore year because of one of my best friends hoping that it would help me be happier. I wanted to distract my homesickness and possibly these bad habits I had developed.

As this past summer hit I began working at a restaurant serving, I nannied two families and I had summer school. I ran myself the lowest I had ever felt. I sometimes wondered how I would be able to carry a tray at work. It was horrible. And after constantly listening to my parents concerns about my dramatic weight loss I knew I had to change something. Thanks to my mom telling me that I needed to stop getting up everyday at 5:30 or 6:00 to go to the gym and satisfy my obsession and my dad having talks with me that I was looking to thin, I decided that it was time to make change. Not only did my loved ones and friends tell me that I needed to stop but most of all my body was begging me.

After already having a sister who was on her deathbed from an eating disorder and another sister who suffered similar eating and image issues, I knew that I didn't want to add to the stress of my family and see them suffer even more. I didn't want to suffer anymore either deep down.

So now it is my junior year and after wasting so much time being so preoccupied with worrying about the way I looked, I knew this is not how life is supposed to be. We can't be perfect like the people we see on television or in magazines. I was telling myself that but for some reason I was not believing it. Things finally began to click. I took myself to a counselor and nutritionist this past semester at school and it really began to help. It helped with my severe anxiety with food and exercise even though I still struggled with it. I can't explain how much better I began to feel about myself and the way it put my life in perspective. Yet still I am living in my sorority house feeling a little out of place and lost. Although I slowly began chipping away at the horrible habits I had developed, i still was in this mindset that was very much distorted. I am not working out as much and I am eating better. I still am not gaining weight though, in fact I just recently hit an all time low right before New Years.

BUT...

Now I sit here today in my room back at school and I think about how far I have come thus far. For the most part I do not struggle with anxiety, I do not feel so much competition with others or my sisters and I am finally more focused on me and what I need to do for myself. I also reflect on how much I have harmed myself by depriving my body the way I have. I think of the possible long term damage I could have done to my body, the time I have wasted in my college years worrying about such a petty thing and missing out on being a college student. Not only do I feel like I look like I am twelve and feel conscious of the way I feel others think of how thin I am, I just constantly desire that I fit into a pair of jeans and feel attractive and confident again. I want the curves back, I want a guy to be able to stop and take a second look and most of all I don't want to ever again see the worry I heard in my dad's voice and saw in his eyes about my health when he dropped me off yesterday. Something finally clicked that this is my new beginning.

So here it is...

Apart from my many other new year's resolutions, I want to stop wasting time and my valuable life away in my prime age of worrying about having what is thought of as the perfect body. No doubt I want to remain healthy and active but I don't want to risk bodily damage that could be everlasting. So I today I started to take a new approach to gain the weight I need, quit with my daily workout routines and find a new way to be active and have fun doing it and only if I have the strength to do it. Instead of rigorous runs, walks and elliptical exercises I challenge myself to join a class that instead helps me to strengthen and tone and maybe even get a yoga dvd or two. I am going to Hawaii on spring break and so I hope that my that time I will reach my goal and finally feel confident with myself and not have everyone so worried about me. I hope to do the things I always enjoyed doing before and come back out of my shell because I am not about to hide myself again. I am ready for the challenge!

I want to use this blog to keep a constant update of how I am progressing. I start of my challenge weighing 99 pounds at a height of 5' 2". My goal is to get involved in a fun toning workout class, gain around 10-15 pounds and to live life to the fullest taking part in every opportunity I can and HAVE FUN! After all, you only live once.

I take my past as learning experience. I don't regret anything of my past and I feel very fortunate to be where I am today. I only see footsteps going forward now and I am so excited to finally be happy and healthy again!!

Here are some pictures from freshman year before I started to lose weight.