My story starts in my early childhood. I was born in Guatemala (the Province of Mexico as some of you gringos like to call it!) and lived there until the age of 7. Anyway, if any of you know anything about Latin culture, it is that we like our fatty greasy foods and our HUGE meal portions! My Grandmother always taught us to eat eat eat! She would always make sure that we were full at all times of the day! Even if we were full, she would still find a way to make us eat!
In Latin American countries, meal times are breakfast, lunch and dinner. When I was growing up, my parents never taught me to eat small meals or in moderation. In fact, I am now a coke (soft drink) addict thanks to my father! At the tender age of 3, I would ask my father for money so I could go to the store and buy myself 1 litre of coke and 2 nusitas (a choclate pudding like snack). This did not happen once a month or even once a week...it happened EVERY SINGLE DAY my dad was home! I did not mind it because I loved coke in my bottle and I loved my nusitas, and well, my dad did not oppose to it either because that meant I would shutup and leave him ALONE!
For breakfast, in Central America, consists of fried black beans, huge loafs of bread, sour cream and eggs....and maybe some champurradas (baked goods) and a cup of coffee to wash all that down! (this qg a lot of the other stuff wasn't healthy.
When we came to Canada, our customs came along with us. Our diet did not really change, but i was introduced to "junk food". My parents joined a Church that they religiously went to on Sundays. My mom would not have time to cook because unfortunately, this Church thing was an all day event. So instead of having a cooked meal, we would have Wendy's every Sunday. Again, I did not complain because Wendy's is awesome!
Then my mom got a job! This meant that it was going to be fast food galour (since my dad did not know how to make anything other than fried eggs!). KFC, chick N' joy, McDonald's, burger king, coffee time doughnouts! It was amazing! I loved every single moment of it!! I am sure that my parents had the best intentions for us, but little did we all know the horrible addictions that they had instilled in us. Everything we ate was greasy and BIG. In fact, my mother used to make me a "triple decker" sandwich! It was good, but I was always so embarassed to eat it in front of my classmates because I was afraid I was going to get teased for being the "fat kid with the triple decker sandwich" oh FML!
I continued to eat this way through most of my Elementary school days. Although I was not 95 lbs, I was also not 200lbs. I was very involved in sports. I was on every school team. Cross country, track and field, high jump, basketball...etc. I loved sports. Although, I was pudgy compared to other girls, there were still other kids who were bigger than me, so I did not see a problem in continuing my "addiction".
Highschool. A nerve wrecking time for any 13-14 year old girl. Do I look fat in my school unifrom? Is my make up ok? Am I hot? All these things we worry about. I must admit, almost all those things went through my head on the first day of highschool. Thankfully, My mom was not making me my triple decker sandwiches anymore!
My eating habbits in highscool got worse. I was no longer in the school sports teams, but instead, I thought it would be a better idea to start smoking! This inactivity left my body no choice but to gain weight...A LOT of it! One morning, I was getting ready for school (it was sometime in grade 10 and a beautiful spring morning) and I wanted to wear my cute uniform skirt...little did I know that it would no longer FIT! This was the first time that I thought to myself "you really need lose that weight". I did (I will talk about that in the next blog).
In late 2003, I began dating Mike (still with him). It was such an exciting time in my life! It was something new and I had never been happier! Finally, I felt I could be myself with this person (regardless of what my weight was!) At this point, I had lost 40 pounds (so I did feel good about myself!). Unfortunately, I let myself go because I thought that if I "cheated" a little, I wouldn't gain so much weight. Little did I know that this was the worst thing I could have done because it would take me a Looonnngggg time to snap out of this habbit again!
College, finally in 2006, I had graduated highschool with honors, and ready to take on my next challenge! Ever since I can remember, I know I wanted to be a Police Officer! I always wanted to catch the bad guy and wear the cool uniform! I knew that I had to be fit in order to make it onto any force! I thought, i'll concentrate on the academic now and the physical later. As most of you probably figured, this was a bad idea! Anyway, I graduated college with honors, got a full scholarship and passed half of the physical components! NOT GOOD for the physical aspect!
Today, here I am! I am doing pretty good for myself. I live with my wonderful boyfriend, own a condo, have a good job (still not a cop though), do volunteering and working my ASS off to lose weight, pass the police physical test and go on to the next chapter of my life!
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