I'm back!

Hi Guys! 

Thanks for clicking on the link and wanting to read what I have to say. As you can see, I use to write on this platform a loooong time ago, it’s always been something I wanted to start back up and with the push of a friend I said, “why not”. I know there are a ton of bloggers out there now, some with better writing and use of this thing “;”, but I’ve never been good at editing my work, so please let me know if I messed up somewhere, but also please don’t judge this. I’m doing this for fun, to connect with others, and to get feedback from people so I can grow. I’ve only had one guy troll my social media before, it was a date gone bad, and I am not looking for more. Enjoy what you can, please feel free to share, feel free to connect with me, and I hope I can connect with you somehow and some way. 

I was offered a fantastic job back in January, it was a huge career step up which meant the production would take me with them when they traveled abroad. We went to fun places like Lake Placid, NY, but we also went to Iceland, Scotland, and Croatia. Right before we were about to leave for Iceland, I was finishing up a 6-week health coaching with Beth Clayton. I was working with Beth on understanding why I self-sabotage with food. I also had been and continue to go to therapy every week at Paradox Process. I tell you this to explain I was well supported by professionals and always running from therapy to a phone coaching session for months. The timing of the job taking me abroad had been perfect, I had gained A LOT of knowledge and awareness with Beth and therapy explored the deep-rooted childhood story I was telling myself and how food played a huge part in that story. 

When the thought of being abroad came to mind, I would envision myself being free. Free from the box of self-help I was in, free to try new foods, free to explore the world on someone else’s dime, free to live life with no responsibilities like meal prepping, grocery shopping, etc. I was so excited to try all of the foods, and all of the drinks, and have all of the experiences I could fit into the reason I was there, to film a fantastic show. I had such deep awareness of myself that I felt all I wanted to do was to shelf it for a while and enjoy my life, and I did just that. I ate the best hot dogs of my life in Iceland, I became a gin drinker, I drank a beer at 7am in Scotland with the crew from Games of Thrones after doing an overnight shoot, I also laid in my hotel bed many nights and ate potato chips and gummy candies watching prison shows on Netflix. 

     

I got back to the US and it was as if the minute I touched the ground I felt immediate stress to be thin. My clothing was fitting tighter, the scale flashed a number that was higher than I could remember seeing in years, and I even went so far as to think it was why I still was single. “This is the third heaviest I have ever been” was a running thought I had. One month in Scotland felt like I had thrown myself, the part of me that was so controlled, away, but at the same time I thought that it had felt wonderful to take a break from trying to have the perfect body. It had felt wonderful to have fully invested in every amazing part of traveling abroad. Beth had taught me what internal powerful choices felt like, Andrea my therapist had told me that telling the story that I was “unworthy and unlovable as I was” wasn’t going to get me anywhere I wanted to go. I knew this shit and yet I still felt deep upset with myself. 

One day as I was scrolling through Instagram, I watched a video from Shirin Eskandani . In the video Shrini had also had the best year of her life but had gained weight during it. She listed everything she had accomplished and everything in life she had fully jumped into, like getting married. She powerfully explained that her weight gain didn’t make her less worthy of happiness and it didn’t take away from any joy she had felt that year.

“We equate weight gain as if we are failing at life, that we are “out of control” or that we “lack discipline”. But the truth is that if we shift the lense just a little, we may see that our weight gain is actually a result of us enjoying the sh*t out of life. Our weight gain may be a sign that our priorities shifted, and we don’t have time to give a f*ck about our weight. Because there are more exciting things to be focusing our energy on.”  

It me. 

I needed to hear that to re-focus myself. I was happy with how I had experienced traveling abroad, food makes me happy and I fully embraced that while traveling. But “Everyday Midge” was trying to make herself sad about it, I was trying to play a victim to myself, I was taking the change I felt from traveling abroad and making a story that wasn’t true to my gut. Yeah, my pants are tight, but I also went to the blue lagoon with the filming crew, and I also saw glaciers in Iceland, and I also climbed Arthur’s Seat in Edinburg and felt the wind on my face from 822 feet above. Fuck my pant size. 

Once I realized that I was ok as is and not a victim of my own doing, I realized that yes…I did want to try and loose some of the weight and it was ok! It didn’t come from a place of rejection of self, restriction, or stress. It came from a place of internal calm. I wanted to get my pull up, I wanted to feel confident in the bikini I bought for my vacation in Mexico, I wanted to achieve a goal of losing weight by the end of December. I had noticed that my feet were swelling at night, that sometimes my fingers swelled, and my ring was tight, that my knees hurt the next day when I drank the night before. I wanted to not eat crafty and catering at work, I wanted to learn how to find balance in my 12-hour day, I wanted to take on the “working in film and tv is so hard to lose weight” mentality most of us have. I was tired of my victimness. I was tired of the sugar migraines I had the next day after trying to stay awake the night before. So, with complete balance I knew I needed to start with my food and that’s when I signed up for Eatnomsquared. They made it simple for me to work 12 hours and know I had a balanced healthy meal to eat when they called “LUNCH” at 7pm. I could plug the calories they listed into myfitness pal and plan the rest of my food around it. I also signed up for personal training and nutrition coaching from Elizabeth Stacey. With her help she created a macro breakdown of what I needed every day. Her program writing plus eatnomsquared meals would assist me in reaching my goal of losing 10 lbs. by the end of December.  

I have adjusted my self-help box and made it work for what I need now, I have found a community of people to help aide me in progressing towards my shift in goals. My time in Iceland and Scotland were the most life affirming moments I have felt in a very long time. Now that I am back, I have remembered and taken what I learned before I left and applied it to my life now. I have become a different woman with this knowledge. I have created space to change and grow. I have set myself up to be powerful every day because I have a planned meal to eat or an idea of what I need for a successful day. I feel in control of myself and don’t look back with regret. This is who I am today. I was still Midge when I was eating Haggis at a pub laughing with my coworker. I have room to be both, because I allow myself to have room.