Fall has always been my favorite time of year. I love the weather, colors, fashion, activities, food-- Everything! My boyfriend, Joel, and I do just about everything we can during the season. I photo-document everything and I used to love all the pictures of us that came out of Fall. This year, I am afraid to upload my photos because I don't want to feel the sadness that comes with seeing how full my face is, how tight the clothes that I once loved wearing fit, and simply how big everything has become on my body. No angle seems to be a good one and I am getting to the point where I am scared to take pictures because I don't want to believe this is my body. I am no longer comfortable in my skin.
Joel and I will have been dating four years come November 13th. We are both 26 years old and are finally at a place where getting engaged and getting married are on the radar. I don't want to be afraid to see our engagement photos or, even worse, our wedding photos and feel sadness about how I wish I could have looked. I don't want to look back at this time as a time I hated myself and my body. I want to look back at this time through the pictures I take and I want to remember the joy I felt at Goebbert's Pumpkin Patch or the exhilaration I felt at the beautiful colors of The Morton Arboretum or the euphoria I felt carving the year's pick of the patch.
I know what I need to do to get in shape and love myself again. It's science. There is a simple formula to lose weight and it's just a matter of sticking to it. These changes to my body didn't happen overnight and it will take longer than that to change it back.
The photo I have attached to this post is of me (with my German Shepherd, Navarre) in early 2012. I felt great at this point in my life (though I didn't recognize how fit I was at the time) and am setting it as a goal to which to get back.
I'm doing this for me.