I am Jessica, the only child my parents had. I was born in November 1986 and grew up in Western Sydney. From a young age I enjoyed to dance and I was placed in dancing when I was 2.5 years old! Dancing was my life and I did it for fun as I was never had the technicality, I just had the brains to remember the dances! With dancing comes the yo-yo dieting!!! Every year just before it was costume fitting time and competition time you would try to lose weight for the costumes and the stage! Now saying that I never remember being a skinny girl growing up I was always the odd one out! I used to always be taller and bigger than the other girls! I remember being happy when I was 5-9 years old and I had friends I liked and they seemed to like me.
Now when I was about 6 or 7 one of my friends mentioned about little athletics. So I must have talked to my parents about it and we joined up! Now yes dancing and athletics interesting combination! But I loved the athletics as well. I can't say I was ever a runner but I did complete in every event and always tried my best! So I used to do dancing 5 days a week and then athletics 3 days a week so I was always a busy girl and I couldn't say I was lazy especially in terms of exercise! Yet I was always the fat girl!! Why was that?? And till this day I still am not sure why! As a family we hardly ate take away food and always had good healthy meals at home. I was only allowed to buy my my lunch from the canteen on a Friday.
Now as I got older I found my calling in athletics and it was in the throwing events. I broke a few records at club level and represented my club at the state carnivals! I also represented NSW in the trans tasman challenge which was a difficult team to make!
I think the hardest thing I found no matter how much exercise/sport I did and how healthy I ate I was always the fat girl! Now when I was 10 I remember not being friends with anybody in my own grade. I had a couple of friends from the grade above that I used to hang with at school. I did have my best friend still (we are still best friends as well!) but the people she hung out with did not want me hanging around so I pretty much couldn't spend time with my best friend and that hurt.
When I was 11 I remember going on my first diet! Now that is scary to think I was only 11 but the comments kids make to fat people hurt and because of all the activity I did my parents could never work out why I was the way I was. So the GP suggested I go on a 1500cal diet and keep a food record of all the food I would consume in a day and make sure I kept to 1500 cal. I can't even remember if that diet worked or not! But I do remember sticking to it!
Anyway went to high school and was bullied even more. But I made new friends and we are still friends and they mean the world to me! I was still dancing and doing athletics. Playing school sport and always participating in PE at school. I loved sport and exercise, but yet I still was the fat kid.
So we went through many diets the rest of my high school life for example the kick start diet, WW and I can't remember what else. I guess I never liked who I was growing up because of all the hurtful comments people used to make about me. I never felt loved. I never felt worthwhile!
I remember one day even my parents made me feel worthless. Mum just had to comment on my weight when I was about 17. And that threw me I was trying to study for my HSC and I just went and sat in the garden and cried. Now I have to tell you why I felt like this! Now my parents aren't skinny. So for them to make a comment about my weight hurt! It was like they were saying eat better and exercise more when they did none of it themselves. I just felt like as if I hadn't tried enough to do something about my weight. I know they were just looking out for me but it hurt and I still remember that day today!
Now I do have to say health isn't great in my family! Grandparents have/had type 2 diabetes. Dad has high blood pressure. Mum has Hashimoto's and Ménière's disease. So that's just the start of the issues! Some of these issues I have a high risk of also having.
So I moved away for uni (getting back to growing up). This was the hardest part of my life. I now had to fend for myself, live off hardly any money, have poor food storage facilities and stop the majority of my regular exercise. So I survived for 3 terms living on campus and don't think I put on any weight or much! Then I moved into my own house and things changed. I stopped playing random tennis games and I started working which meant more money to spend on other foods. I also was working at a buffet restaurant so that meant when my shift finished we got a free meal.
So over the 3 years I had left at uni I think I put on at least 10kg! Also in my last 2 years I was working shift work in aged care so that didn't help much along with the study food etc. I did join a gym and start walking regularly. I was always conscious about my weight because I was studying to be a dietitian and never wanted to be the fat dietitian. I managed to lose a good 7-8kg in my final year of uni with just going to the gym regularly and watching what I was eating.
Then I finished my last prac from uni and failed so that really pissed me off and made me feel horrible. And I comfort ate from memory because I just wanted to be a dietitian and graduate with everybody else from my year! I put weight back on! Anyway did an extra prac and passed with flying colours :) And got to graduate with everybody else. Then I found and got a job as a dietitian and I moved all the way from Wagga to the Sunshine coast in the process and the first few months living there I managed to put on 10kg! And that's where my WW journey started. Now I have lost those 10kg I put on and extra 5kgs as well! I still have issues with myself and I still have bad habits that need to be changed. But these days I love the gym, love exercising after work, love cooking food, love keeping myself in line as much as possible. I look at myself today and still see a fat girl but I know I am much healthier than I was 8 months ago. I still feel worthless and unloved at times but those are hard things to change straight away and we continue to take time to change after thinking that way for almost 20years!
So that is my long blog for today and it has definitely kept me distracted for an hour! he he I still have a long way to go to find out and get past my emotional problems but as with anything we will get there :)
Please comment if you have anything to say! :)
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