Blue(s) shoes

Hi guys! From now on I’ll be blogging in my best English (hum hum) because some international friends of mine found the Dutch version too hard to follow. So here goes!
If you find any mistakes, please let me know; otherwise I’ll just feel embarrassed afterwards. Okay, everyone updated, moving on.

After reading the posts that I’ve written so far, you’ve probably gathered by now that I’m quite the sensitive person and often struggling to find out what it is exactly that I want.
I started out hating sports and being overweight and now I’m doing aerobics twice a week whilst making time for workouts with my brand new fitness hula hoop (yeah let that sink in, we’ll talk about it later). Concerning the overweight thing; I now weigh 59 kilos which is fine for my length (I’m 1m64cm) so that ‘problem’ has gone out the window as well.
Yay! … Yay?

Yesterday I went to work (I work (as a student, obv.) at Moochie Frozen Yogurt in Mechelen, come check us out!) and I was fortunate enough to co-work with one of my favorite gal pals. She and I had a brief moment in between customers to have some fruit and to talk. It didn’t take us long to discuss healthy food and working out and eventually we both came clean: we struggle. We always have, actually. Both us used to be overweight, both of us hated working out. What’s more; both of us started eating healthier and sporting and eventually both of us lost ourselves completely in the process.

The thing is -and I’m sure that many people recognize this-, if you’ve been picked on or bullied when you were overweight, it kind of sticks with you even when you’ve lost the weight. Like they say: an elephant never forgets. Haha, sorry, sick joke. Back to the point: when my boyfriend and I broke up last year (not because of my weight, tbc) I was so heartbroken that I didn’t feel like eating much. Over the course of two months -tops- I had already lost 5 kilos, purely because I was so sad and didn’t eat as much as I did before. When I started eating healthier stuff, another 4-5 kilos dropped. Finally I also started working out, because I wanted my body to stop ‘flapping around’, so to speak. To give you the numbers -since I’m not ashamed of it anymore-: I used to weigh 73 kilos, I now weigh 59. High five for me. Then again: no. The first semester of this year I was single and determined to be happy and to start with my body. I have to say, I did feel better. That post of Confessions of a newly sporty spice, contains no lies. But it doesn’t give you the full picture. Every time that I stood on the scales and saw that I’d lost weight, I was content. But after a while, I started to get frustrated when it didn’t keep on going lower so when sometimes the scales even went back up a bit, I went berserk. I was so scared to go back to my ‘fat’ body (it is such a damn shame to see yourself that way…) and to get the backlash again that I lost it. I didn’t enjoy eating anymore (I pretended a lot around friends and family) and I was afraid of virtually everything that I put in my mouth. Then came the day of my breaking point: I got myself as far as to put a finger down my throat and puke it all out. It is (luckily) the only time it happened, because right as I got back up, I saw myself in the bathroom mirror (flustered face and all) and it hit me what I had just done. The books that I had read as a teenager about girls with anorexia or bulimia (which then sounded so ridiculous to me and my ‘food is life’-motto) flashed through my mind and scared the hell out of me so right then and there I decided that it had to stop. Admittedly, at that time, I was very unhappy with a lot of things that were happening in my personal life but I knew that going down this particular road would only make things worse.

What I did was; I started treating myself with little things whenever I was spiralling. I took a bath, bought ELLE magazine, got new earrings, had a cheat day on which I didn’t work for school, and so on. By mid-December things fortunately turned for the better in my life so gradually I climbed out of my dark pit. My boyfriend and I decided to be (happy) together again, I found a healthy balance between (not) working out and I enjoyed my (healthy) food again. It didn’t happen in one day and sometimes I still struggle but hey, Rome wasn’t built in a day either, right? Baby steps. I’ve had a taste of how it can be when it goes that wrong and I have decided for myself that I never ever want to go back there again. Like I said, though, I have my boyfriend who has been supporting me through thick and thin when it comes to my eating and sporting issues. He really is a trooper. And beside him I know that I can also count on my sisters, my parents and my friends so like Bruno Mars says: #blessed.
Only you can make the decision, true, but support helps you a long way.

Okay, that was pretty dark there for a while; I hope you’re still with me, if so; take a deep breath: I’m fine now! 😊 No worries.
(And so is my Moochie friend, btw, she’s sparkling like a fairy on steroids!)
I know that I’m very honest and that may scare the bejesus out of some of you but trust me, it’s better to throw these things out in the open. Firstly for myself, because talking about it helps, but also for you. Well, maybe not specifically for you reading this, but for some of you. That friend at Moochie is not the only friend I have who understands what I went through. I have countless friends who are afraid of enjoying food, who don’t dare order the food they want at restaurants and who, ultimately, are very unhappy with themselves and their life. And that’s just not right. So by telling my own story I’m hoping to reach out to those and be able to tell them that it gets better if they start to stand up for themselves.
Because in the end, you’re the only one who can.

Now, my personal life is filled with highs and lows at the moment. I don’t know why all the things that are happening to me are happening but I also realized that there’s no sense in asking that question. Life’s about how you deal with it. I try to be supportive for my boyfriend whose mother is very sick at the moment, I try to make sure that I spend enough to make myself happy but not too much to have to worry, I try to work hard for school so that I can get my diploma and don’t have to study this summer, I try to support my friends, I try to handle my eating difficulties, I try to work out enough but no too much, I try to go donate blood although it makes me feel like shit afterwards, I try to be there for my little sister as much as I can, even though I know it’s not enough, I try to keep in touch with my older sister who does so much for me and has had a rocky life but manages like a boss, I try to keep the past in the past, I try to not let my sleeping problems bother me, I try to forget nightmares, I try to not be upset by how many people are surrounding me when I take the train, I try not to feel like a failure when I cut the pineapple wrong at work, I try and I try and I try… How much I envy people to whom these things are easy peasy… Who just do instead of try. Who don’t feel like they’re failing all the time or that everything takes such effort. Who aren’t tired or who can handle tired like a boss. Sometimes I can handle life just fine myself, which gives me great pride; sometimes I fail miserably and cry myself to bits. Which is a sorry way to live so here’s how I (try to) cope.

The key for me is accepting that perfection is just not who I am as a person. I’m messy. I try. I fail. But like Samuel Beckett said -if one can believe the internet-: ‘Ever try, ever fail? Try again, fail better.’ At some point you have to stop yourself and wonder why it bothers you and if there is really no way to accept what happens. Mirroring yourself to other people is plain stupid. No one does you like you and no one does them like they do. That’s it. If not going out makes me happy, then yay for me. If going out and having smashing memories and photo’s to prove it later, then yay for them. If eating a burger after x amount of days of clean eating feels like heaven then just fucking do it! (excuse my French.) Like I said to my friend: I know what I’m putting in my mouth and it’s almost always healthy or nature-friendly. I know that I work out at least twice a week so whatever the results: that’s super great! No matter the number on the scales: I know what I’ve done to keep my body fit and that’s all that counts. Besides: my prince-boyfriend keeps telling me how beautiful he thinks I am so I am one lucky woman to have him tell me that and to be remembered: that’s all that matters. Honest to blog.

To refer to my title and demonstrate my preaching: today I felt blue and emotional and cried twice already because I’m tired and feel like shit but then I bought myself some shoes (they weren’t that expensive but they’re so pretty!) and so the blues have lifted a little. Taking care of you, that should be your priority. All the rest will follow.
Please, have a lovely day of (self-)love.
XOXO TheFienTeam

PS: I know this was one hell of a long post but when the subject is this close to the heart, the words flow easily. Also: if what you just read hit a nerve or made you think or makes you want to open up to someone: you know how to reach me!
PS: Oh yes: food IS life. #neverforget