Kick Boxing

Food and body image. I have always had a hard time with the way I look from about 14 years old. I have had issues with food and how much I eat. I wont eat alone, I will only eat small amounts most of the time less then what the children eat. Yes I know how this sounds even as I type it out, but I can not help it, I can't stop feeling this way. It has gotten better over the past couple of years.

Before I got pregnant with my son I was at my worst with this. I was down to 100lbs and still had horrible body issues, I would only eat about a half a small grab bag of chips per day. Once I found out I was pregnant with my son I struggled with knowing I had to eat to make him healthy and that I was gaining weight. Everyone told me its normal to gain weight, that it was "okay". In my mind all I seen and heard was that I was getting fat. during the first and part of the second trimester the doctors were worried with how little weight I was gaining, I was put on a special diet. For my third trimester they were worried with how much weight I was gaining because of me having toxemia. At the end of my pregnancy I weighed 200lbs. Once I had my son via c-section I was told no exercise for 6 weeks. Of course I didn't listen I did take it slow and once again become obsessed with my weight. I got back down to 105lbs within  a couple of months. My son and his adoptive family came to visit in the spring and they were extremely concerned with how I looked and my weight. A few weeks later I had a stroke. They say it was caused by unknown reasons but now I am on meds the rest of my life. Still I continued on this path of weight loss and working out to the extremes.

I started college and with college came stress, hours of sitting and of course food. My weight went from 105lbs to 125lbs within 2 years. I freaked out and started to binge eat. I would eat, feel horrible about myself, stop eating and work out non-stop. The cycle continued over and over again.

Last summer I enrolled a friends child, my niece and nephew into karate at Titanium Martial Arts and Fitness, there I met two wonderful women Lori (The owner) and Crystal the now kick boxing instructor. At that point I was still having an extremely hard time with body image and what I felt I should look like. In February I started their kick boxing program and fell in love. They had to stop their kick boxing program while they moved to a new building.

Once the program started back up again in April, I once again fell in love with the program, the instructor and the group of ladies I work out with. It is 3 days a week for one hour, I look forward to each class. Its great to see the improvements in myself and the other great women in the classes. Each of us are there for our own reasons, but in the end we all support each other and our goals. I get to measure everyone each month and the smiles when they see they have dropped inches is wonderful!

I have been in kick boxing for 8 months now, longest one in the class. I love helping the new people who come in to learn the moves and watch them be able do things over time that they couldn't even attempt when they first started. I have lost inches, my weight has been constant. Food, in my mind, seems to still be the enemy, I will at least eat alone from time to time, still only small meals or just once a day, but slowly I am gaining confidence in the way I look.