My life in pictures...

Here's a visual timeline of me through the years and the many different sizes I have been along the way....

A long time ago, I found a bunch of photos of me and my sister in bathing suits (we had a pool when we were little) and she was always in a two-piece and I was always in a one piece.  I asked, "why was I never in a two-piece?" and the reply was, "well, you've always had a belly."  That stuck with me that even as a little girl, my tummy size was a factor to me and to others.

I'm in the red swimsuit.

This is 4th grade.  I'm the last kid on the right in the first row.

Then there was the pre-teen stage.  I'll never forget telling a family member that I was going to try out for cheerleader at the end of my 8th grade year for 9th grade and they said, "Well you'll have to lose weight first." Below is a picture of me around that time...I'm on the left.

High School days when baggy clothes were in...who knows what size I really was?

On to the college years...

Then there were the single years after college...

My self-esteem about my body was so low that I would cheer my sister (seen below) up by showing her my tummy so she could feel better about her tummy. I'm on the right.

Dating my future husband...

Married life before pregnancy...notice all the cleverly posed/cropped photos

Towards the end of pregnancy...

After the baby...

I even went to Dallas to audition for the Biggest Loser...but obviously I wasn't chosen...

The last couple of years...I'm the 4th from the left below

The night of my first sleep study...

This is after I was told by a family member that I wasn't worth the investment it takes to get bariatric surgery without insurance.

Looking at these pictures is crazy because I went on my first diet when I was 9 years old.  Are you kidding me?  I wasn't even fat!  I blame our culture partially for teaching girls that you should be stick thin to be attractive.

I know everyone is shaped differently and I for sure carry most of my weight in my stomach but I hid it pretty well for the most part until after giving birth and developing even more medical problems.

The biggest thing I can say after viewing these is, please, be careful what you say to others, be careful what you believe about yourself based on other people's comments/opinions.  They probably don't mean anything by it and think that they are helping you out.  No one did this to me but myself.  The negative talk wasn't super helpful but I have to remember this quote:

Well, from now on, I do NOT give my consent!