I had been overweight all throughout childhood until my early 20s when I finally decided to make a change.
I went from being completely unaware of how fat I was to super aware and disgusted with myself. All throughout my growing up though, I was very lazy and had a bad diet. The worst of my diet and lifestyle came from non-stop snacking in between meals and being incredibly lazy. When I was a teenager I was dealing with my own weight issues and insecurities, while my sister suffered from her insecurities in a different way - through anorexia. We are now grown up and have both gotten healthy and are now about the same size for the first time! I lost 75 lbs to get where I am now, but even after losing so much weight, I still had quite a ways to go mentally.
Mentally, I still saw myself as an obese girl who shopped in the plus size sections and tried to hide her body. That was the hardest hurdle to get over. I am much better now, but that girl is still inside of me somewhere, and still shows through sometimes. When I looked in a mirror after losing weight I still only saw my imperfections. I didn't see how good I really looked, I only saw my imperfect stomach - seriously, 75 lbs gone and it still looks like that? It has gotten much better, and I am actually forming abs from all of my hard work exercising and working so hard to get strong and lean. But I still get frustrated thinking how much better I could look at this weight if I had never been overweight to begin with. I am finally at a point where I exercise because I love it, not to see how many calories I can burn. I eat healthy because I love how it makes me feel. And I actually have days where I look in the mirror and think I look good! My husband praises me all the time (and he met me at my highest weight), but even with all his praises, I had to learn to love my body in my own time.