Work it. Lose it. Earn it.

Also, cause I feel that it’s time to say this…

This might be a bit long, so click on if you feel so inclined!

Basically, this is the story of how I got to where I am today. 

Between 2009/10 I developed an eating disorder. I wouldn’t eat all day, then get home and have a very meagre dinner. I lost a LOT of weight in a very short amount of time. Not only that, but it really messed up my psychological relationship with food. 

After the summer of 09/10 (at the beginnning of 2010), I started eating a lot of crap food. But I would justify it as I would eat practically nothing else during the day, so what harm would a few biscuits do? This continued throughout my final year of highschool - I would barely eat anything all day, but would always have some type of junk food. 

At the end of high school, it was like I gave up completely on my diet and exercise. I have always been one to exercise relatively regularly, but I kept telling myself that I deserved a break. I was eating a LOT of junk food by this point, and hardly exercising at all. Between finishing school in October 2010, and the end of January 2011, I had gained 6 kilos. Which may not seem like a lot, but due to the way my body stores fat, it was basically all on my stomach, which made a huge difference to how I looked. 

I started my uni course, and absolutely hated it. 6 weeks in I stopped going to uni. 2 of my closest friends had moved away to go to uni, and my other best friend was having a ball in her course. Having always been an emotional eater, I turned to food. I tried to fool myself into thinking I was dieting - I would eat either healthy food, or minimal food all day, yet continued to eat food that I knew was bad for me, yet I was surprised and upset when I wasn’t losing weight.

I was an emotional wreck. I would cry over the slightest things. I was socially isolated, and hated going out into public. The only social contact that I had for a few months was my boyfriend and the people I worked with. I hated leaving the house. Around June, I started seeing a psychologist. I had depression. 

Things started getting real for me then. I was sick of crying, sick of feeling so alone. I turned to my old friend, exercise. Though I had neglected it for so long, it was so easy to get back into.

I started exercising regularly. I cleaned up my diet MAJORLY. I started losing weight, and it felt soooo amazing. Honestly, it sounds cliched, but exercise is really one of the best anti-depressants. For me, it had a two-pronged effect - short term, it made me feel healthy and gave me a good kick of endorphins, and long term, it helped me lose weight which in turn gave me more confidence. I started a new job and made new friends, I travelled overseas and had a wonderful time. I caught up with old friends. I was getting back my old life and old confidence. 

So that has been my life for the past few months - eating right, exercising, losing weight, and gaining confidence. Yeah, I’m not quite at my goal weight yet, but I know if I keep working at it I will get there. And to be perfectly honest, right now I’m the happiest I’ve been in a long time. Which feels fantastic (: