I've been struggling with my weight for as long as I can remember. There was this one time in primary school where we had to weigh ourselves... why? Yeah, why the fuck would you make primary school kids weigh themselves in front of the whole class? That's just cruel. Nah, I think it was for some sort of class science project or something along that line. Regardless, that whole week before the weigh in, I started to starve myself. All the girls in class were skinny, and I wanted so bad to fit in. I mean I wasn't fat, I was just more so on the chubbier side. That being said when all the girls weighed in most under 40kg, I was sitting close to 50kg. Imagine the trauma my per-pubescent self felt at the time. I knew I should have laid of the Maccas every Wednesday. Dammit Dad, see what you did to me? No, but seriously, I had a happy meal religiously once a week when my dad picked me up early on Wednesdays. A 6 chicken nugget happy meal with sweet and sour sauce. Bitch, no regrets there... a little regret maybe?

In year 7 I hit puberty. That nasty little bug got me good. I gained weight faster then I could chew my food. During Easter of 7th grade, my friend and I decided it would be nice to visit our primary school teachers, because you know I missed them ever so much, and hand out some chocolate to celebrate the festivity. There I encountered a teacher who kindly made the remark, I kid you not, in front of his class, "Nika you look like you've grown... that way" while he gestured his hands out horizontally. Fuck you Mr. Hoang. That was not something you should be telling a hormonal teenager suffering the wrath of puberty and gaining weight at the speed of light. So as you might have guessed, I became a little depressed and never did I ever step foot back in that primary school to visit anyone from that day onwards... scarred for life.

In year 8, or was it year 9? It was then, I hit my all time low sitting around 58kg. As I looked around my class, my school (I was in an all girls' school), it was rare you saw a fat Asian girl. They were all petite and small, they all looked good in their uniforms. Here I was worrying every morning about how fat my legs were, and whether my stomach was protruding, and cursing the school for not allowing us to wear pants. It was during our first two week break that I decided to do something I know now I shouldn't have done. I legitimately starved myself to lose weight. I would eat one small meal a day, or not at all, depending and try to sleep my hunger away. So for two weeks I was bloody putting my body under so much stress and frustration that it decided to do what I had hoped. I was finally closer to 50kg than I would ever be by the time we started school again. I was happy my waist was looking smaller, my legs a little thinner... I was happy.

Obviously that crash non existent diet didn't work... obviously. The moment school started I began eating so much I was starting to feel my own stomach expand so rapidly it was making me sick. In the mornings before class started, I would eat a packet of instant noodles, and maybe half a sandwich, then a bottle of soft drink. I don't know... and then for recess I had dim sims, and for lunch I would eat the other half of my sandwich and whatever else my friends could not finish. I was becoming a monster... a fat one. One morning, a girl in my class asked me, "how much do you plan on eating?" and that's when it hit me. I ran home that day and finally pulled all my strength together to weigh myself... in the span of the first week back at school... I had put back on all the weight I lost... and more. 62kg... I've set the record for myself.

For the next couple of years I struggled being the same weight. There were cases where I'd see slight improvements because I started exercising, but that never lasted too long. Last year, I developed a habit of overeating... eating more than I can sustain. In all honesty, I don't eat that much. The portion to fill me aren't that big, but because for some stupid reason I started trying to finish food I know I couldn't, then I would for the next hour complain about how full I am and how sick I feel. I overate to the point I would constantly feel like throwing up after a meal. It wasn't good. Naturally, I gained a bit of weight for that short period of time. The heaviest I had ever seen myself, I was 67kg. Immediately realizing my problem I restrained myself from being a pig, and surely two weeks in, I shed that weight back to 64kg.

It's now 2015, and my biggest worry was that whilst overseas, I would gain a tremendous amount of weight. Seeing how fast I put on weight, I worry a little. For four weeks I was away from home, spending a week in Hong Kong and 3 weeks in South Korea. I didn't restrain myself from eating at all, I thought to myself if I were to gain weight, at least it was from eating good food. However, I'm certain the amount of walking we did every day and the number of stairs we walked up and down had something to do with the maintenance of my weight. It's been a week since I've come back and weighing myself now, I'm 63kg in the morning and 64/65kg at the end of the day. It's definitely not a number I want to be at, but it is a number that I will start with.

Now I have never done anything like this before... but I reckon in order to work with myself a bit better I should do it just to prove to myself that I am not afraid. Plus showing myself to the internet would only make me want to work that much more harder to succeed in this weight loss journey I am commencing.

Labels: weight loss losing kgs fitness health looking feeling good self-esteem