I have very fond memories of my siblings and I competing to see who can finish the 18oz steak & a fully loaded baked potato first… In our culture the kids who eat well are praised; skinny is not healthy according to most Caribbean folks but get too fat and they’ll make sure to mention it as well.
Finding that balance is difficult because there is NO balance. Too skinny? Eat rice & peas. Too Fat? Then what? Unless you where blessed with one of those perfectly curved Betty Boop silhouettes; here is where most people get lost. Getting fat for people like me is not a difficult task. Fat welcomes itself in my body like the plague. That extra junk in the trunk is more than welcome but unfortunately for me the junk doesn’t distribute itself only in the trunk. Then you hear comments like: “Don’t lose too much now… you won’t have any ass left!” This is the most common excuse I hear often from ladies asking for advice, but I’ll leave that for separate post.
Judging by my childhood diet, one would think I’ve been obese all my life but fortunately for me it wasn’t till after; in my teens that I started gaining and lets not forget losing quite the significant amount of weight. I’m talking yo-yoing between 68kg & 106kg at my largest pre babies. When 14 year old me was diagnosed with PCOS; I had no idea what that meant. So no more periods for me?! I was obviously happy about that! But don’t you need periods to have kids? Is what I wondered? Back then you couldn’t just ask Siri.
Somewhere between 14 & 16 years of age accompanied by tons of junk food, sodas and applesauce, I gained from approx. 70kg to 92kg. This was the first time I ever got “THIS BIG”! PCOS was partially to blame but now I know that most of that damage was done by sugar. That sneaky son of a bitch sugar, that hides in all my favorite processed foods. At that time “Michael Thurmond’s 6 Week Body Makeover” program was THE DIET to try, promising 30lbs down in 6 weeks. My mom purchased the program for me to try. 6 Weeks of 7 tasteless meals a day later… I lost about 15kg. So happy me continued but added salt and sugar back into my diet as I was always told that FAT made fat! I mean they do take fat out and replace it with sugar in all your favorite low calorie “fat free” delights.
I easily maintained this weight for about a year until I started culinary school and well… how else will I learn if I don’t taste the foods. So YES! You guessed it! 18 years old me gained a ton of weight again. Luckily I stopped gaining after 8kg up. Though not on purpose, as I did continue to eat bad foods! The difference was that my cousin George had moved to Amsterdam at the time and he enjoyed walking everywhere… so I started walking everywhere with him. Just like that despite my bad eating habits I lost… and lost… and lost down to 67kg with no effort what so ever. Obviously this was just waaaaay to skinny for my Caribbean folks. Worries of me being on crazy drugs where mentioned or maybe an eating disorder? Yes I got THAT skinny.
Moving along to 2006, when I moved to St. Maarten I kept my weight pretty stable until I got my first car. I started to gain back slowly. I remember in 2007 I fell in love with my now husband and we started dating with me at around 75kg. After that it all went to hell! He loved food… I love food… we went out often, drank a lot of cocktails and got FAT! I gained up to 106kg the first year we dated. Obviously I knew I had to lose it again so I purchased the 6 weeks program myself this time but I didn’t eliminate the salt. I just couldn’t do it again… Got back down to 94kg by the time we got married in 2010.
Knowing that I have PCOS and it would probably be difficult to conceive we decided to start trying for a baby by January 2011. I stopped taking my birth control pill Diane 35 and went back to normal no period me. 2012… still no period… No period no baby right? Finally I got my first serious doctors appointment to address the obvious situation. I was asked to lose weight to give us better chances so I slowly made my way down to 89kg by 2013.
2013, over 30 negative pregnancy tests later, I finally got pregnant for the first time and luckily had our beautiful miracle Lyla in 2014. I stepped on the scale after giving birth and saw 116kg. I nearly fainted. “Wow! That’s gonna be a lot of work”: I remember thinking to myself. But I was assured that breastfeeding would do the trick. So I breastfed strictly for the first 6 months… But the weight didn’t come off… It actually came on! I was constantly hungry… soooo hungry. Every time she fed I fed too.
By her first birthday I was 128kg. I remember stepping on the scale thinking to myself: “Ok. You got this! Don’t allow this to get even more out of hand!” Wanting a second child I decided to go see my doctor again for advice. I was told that my ovaries where worse than before and that we would have to do a hormone treatment again to conceive our second child. He assured me that it was possible as we did it before but most probably not without assistance. He advised a 6 months break in order to lose some weight before we started rounds of treatment. I took it as a challenge. I had 6 months to lose as much as I could. I didn’t want to do any type of diet so I just limited my carbs and ate mostly meat & veggies. I lost 10kg in about a month. I know fast but honestly just not having a loaf of bread with nutella daily did the trick! What? I said I was hungry!
Anyways suddenly I’m puking my guts out; miracle Luke was 6 weeks shocking the hell out of us all! So diet plans had to change cause obviously no dieting during pregnancy but I did way better this time! Stepped on the scale after Luke’s delivery 116kg. Phew! Not bad. I can work with this! But then the dreaded breastfeeding! Ok just don’t eat bread with Nutella everyday… Oh but I wanted that bread and Nutella so I had my bread with Nutella… went back up to 124kg.
Ok so at this point I’m sure that even you’re tired of reading about my UP & DOWN… when will this ever end! Patience; the end is near! Just gotta tell you about “THAT MOMENT” I mean obviously how I looked in the mirror was not reason enough to really change my bad habits. I needed “THAT MOMENT”! That moment my daughter wanted me to dance with her. Yup! That one dance! The one I gave up on after not even 2 minutes because I was out of breath. That one dance where she pulled my arm crying because I was just so tired. My body was not only tired because of my 4 month old son or my 2 year old that just wanted to dance. I was just plain OUT OF SHAPE! I felt embarrassed. Not because I looked fat… but because I finally really felt FAT! Not only fat but SICK! I mean honestly what kind of example was I setting for my children?
That’s when I decided to take control… I decided to educate myself on all these things I’m putting in my body because the same things I’m putting in mine I was feeding to my family. I educated myself using Google, watching documentary after documentary about food, reading about a bunch of different diets, picking and choosing and creating a plan that hopefully would work for my lifestyle. After all weight loss depends 80% on what you eat. Losing the weight wasn’t an issue. I’ve done it many times before! Obviously keeping it off was my biggest problem, that’s where I had to find MY balance between fitness & nutrition.
Fast forward to 3 years later I’m down 110lbs, still adjusting the balance of my lifestyle but at least now I know how to make better choices and most importantly WHY!?
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