Warning: Deep weight-loss shit ahead.

I’ve mentioned it all of once on this site (I thought I did mention it more), but I’ve been working on losing some of this forsaken weight that has cursed me in all different directions. It’s the root of my poor self-image. I’ve struggled with it for years, and I have tried (and failed miserably) to work on it.

Within 2 years, I have lost a total of over 40 pounds. The strange thing was the very first few pounds that I started to lose. I was eating as normal, and I would lose 3-4 pounds. Granted they were within 4 months, but I was losing them, and that’s all that mattered to me anyway. I was still discouraged though. I’m losing the weight, but very slow, and it was a bit frustrating. Some people lose that amount of weight in a week.

Last September, I went to physical therapy with my mom. She saw this advertisement for acupuncture for weight loss. I thought why not? I don’t have anything to lose (excuse the pun). I did the first weigh in before the sessions started, and by that time, I was already 12 pounds lighter. Amazed, I went on with the sessions, along with some supplements, and watched as the pounds melted away. The first thing I noticed was that my ankles, which were always swollen, were now half the size. I think my words were “damn, my ankles are ashy, but they look so much smaller!” During this time, my craving for Pepsi was cut to almost zero, and whereas I wasn’t able to go without chocolate after a few days, I went weeks without the stuff. After a month, I shrunk another 10 pounds, making the absolute total come up to 22 pounds. I kept on doing it, because this is my miracle–everything else failed–this actually worked! Why stop now? At the end of the following month, I lost another 12 pounds. Now I’m up to 34 pounds. Wicked.

Then it happened–the plateau. Well, it was more like that time where I went into severe seasonal depression–the worst I’ve been through ever. I was going through a slew of things and I slowly fell off. Not completely, but chocolate became my best friend again. I was frustrated with myself. Not because of the slow reversion, but because of a lot of things that happened in that 3-month period. Stress kicked my ass.

Since then, I’ve stopped acupuncture…for now. If I get the chance, I’d do it again, because I can be one of those people who can say that it works. As of last week, I have lost 44 pounds within 2 years. Even through the holidays, and the seasonal depression, I did it. Is this to say that my self-image is repaired completely? No. It’s gonna take awhile, but at least this is a start. In fact, I can show you the ever-so-rare body pictures now. Don’t laugh, yall.

This was two years ago. July 2006 to be exact. This was before I realized any dramatic weight changes.

This was March 8, 2008. So it’s not showing my legs. I think that’s to be done when it starts to feel like the season that it’s in at that current moment (read: summer).

My health has been better as a result. Other than me being clumsy, anemia that seems to run in the family, and these headaches, my feet doesn’t hurt me as much (that is, if I hadn’t fucked them up recently, and if it isn’t cold), and my blood sugar went down from being a diabetic scare to…normal. My wrists dropped a few sizes and my waist lost a few inches. Due to my feet feeling much better, activity isn’t as much a hassle as before. I still tire, but that’s where the anemia comes in. But it’s mostly gravy now. No, not really, because I still hate gravy. Which is a good thing probably anyway.