Brace Yourselves…. Here it Comes!

Isn’t it cute how ever since I promised to be more transparent, I have been avoiding my blog like the plague? This has happened for a few reasons. Mainly, because denial is a soft, warm and fuzzy place I prefer to stay cocooned in.

But it isn’t a place of healing, and healing is my mission, so here I am, preparing to unpack.

For now I am not going to dive too deeply into my mental health struggles and epiphanies, I’ll get to those in a later post, right now my focus is on my body and my decision to gain weight.

I mentioned before I would be posting my ‘before’ pics. The reason I made this decision was to hold myself accountable. I keep making “putting on weight” my goal, but for the last 2 years I have only broken the 53kg barrier once, and that was just for a few days. I’m no longer at 48kgs, at which point even I had to admit I looked so skeletal it was very scary, but at 50.5 I am cutting it mighty fine. Clearly, I’m not really making progress, and deep down, I know why.

Goals need to be SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-Based.) in order to see any results.

So I need more than an idea, I need an action plan.

• Specific and Measurable: I need to be at a healthy weight for my BMI, with some fat as well as muscle on my bones. As scary as 60kg sounds to me, for my height this is allegedly healthy.
• Achievable and Relevant: I suffer with endometriosis and the IBS that comes along with it, meaning there are a lot of foods I can’t eat. I can’t just pig out and cause other problems, I need to be sensible. I need to also structure my day so that I remember to eat, or make eating a priority. This won’t happen on its own, in order for this goal to be achievable I have to become conscious of what I eat and when.
• Time-Based: I need to set goal-post deadlines and hold myself accountable for them.

That’s pretty much why I decided to blog my process; to hold myself accountable. It’s also the reason I put blogging this off all week. I took some before photos, and looking at them and thought “I don’t look anorexic here, I am overreacting. People are going to say I am looking for attention. Maybe I am looking for attention. There’s nothing wrong with me, I should keep quiet and let the people who have real problems get help, and not bother people with my imaginary problems.”

Thankfully I shared this viewpoint with my mum, who set me straight very quickly…; these are clearly the words of denial. I will most likely continue to see-saw over this issue, and I’ll have to accept I’m not the best person to judge my situation right now because I don’t have objectivity. I also need to remember I am not doing this for anybody else.

That being said, I am at the start of my journey, and here are my before pics. Maybe one day I will look at them and see what everybody else sees.

If you have any weight gain diet / workout tips for me, or words of encouragement, please leave them in the comments, I would really appreciate hearing your thoughts. If you have any questions for me about anything at all, please don’t hesitate to ask!