My story
Do you sometimes feel fat or not happy in your skin? Do you sometimes look at other moms and wonder how come they bounced back after their pregnancies? Are you always trying to be healthy? Are you always trying diet after diet? Being a mom is the hardest job it’s 24 hours, seven days a week, unpaid and you never get time off.
My name is Ana-Maria. I’m 35 years old, always being overweight. I have two lovely boys Patrick who is six years old and Philip who is two years old.
I remember when I gave birth to Patrick I was 113 kg , and when I gave birth to Philip I was 112 kg.
When Philip was three months old, May 2019, I was 100 kg. I was unhappy, hated the way that I looked, over tired, angry, depressed.
Then quarantine happened and in May 2020 I was 122 kg. I was all alone at home with my boys, we wouldn’t go out for weeks. I did no movement whatsoever. All I did was eat a jar of chocolate every week and have junk food takeaway every other day.
I hit rock bottom. People would make fun of me. People would judge me for letting myself go. I was miserable. I went on a diet, cause that’s what people do, right? And when the diet didn’t work and I went back to my old ways I felt stuck. I felt that I was disappointing my family. I felt that I was failing my children by not being a good example. I used to cry myself to sleep. I felt so lonely in my weight loss journey because all that people said around me is that I’m not motivated. I’m not ambitious.
How can I be ambitious with everything else around me: having my own business, looking after my children and my husband, always learning more, taking new courses, getting qualifications and not be ambitious about my health???
It took me so much time to realise that is not about ambition or motivation it’s a mind thing. I read the book You Can Heal Your Life by Louise Hay and it finally hit me that the only way that I could heal my life is by accepting where I’m at and loving myself and being grateful for my body and my health.
Living a holistic life is about looking after your body, your mind and your spirit. They come together as a whole.
Once I started working on my mind and my spirit my health soon followed.
I’ve made a list of things that make me happy. I’ve written down my goals and it’s not about the weight anymore. It’s about being healthy. It’s about waking up everyday and being grateful for the bed that I’ve slept in, being grateful for the light that’s shining through my windows, being grateful for the children that come jumping on my bed.
I write this with tears in my eyes, because that book has been so emotional to me. I had to look myself in the mirror and say I Love You, I love your chin, I love your round face, I love your tummy, I love your wrinkles. All of the things that I’ve hated for 35 years I now learn how to love. I couldn’t have done it without Frankincense essential oil. It brought all of my emotions out and helped me to express myself. Is now part of my every day routine.
Let me tell you it’s not easy. Change doesn’t happen overnight. But I am at it everyday. Before I would say Oh my God you look so fat what is wrong with you?? I now say The Gift Of Health is Keeping Me Alive. I highly recommend The Magic by Rhonda Byrne, 28 days of exercises to help create healthy habits, being grateful and bring joy to your life.
We always complain that we’re not beautiful, we don’t have the money that we want, we don’t have the career that we want. How about we change the conversation in our head? How about we focus on what we have and be grateful for all we have?
Whenever one of them thoughts comes to mind, acknowledge it and say to yourself I am beautiful, I’m grateful for the money that I have, I am grateful that I have paid my bills and rent this month, I’m working for the career that I want.
What makes you happy? What does success look to you? What does beautiful mean to you? What does healthy mean to you?
Spending time with my children makes me happy. However, I always used to work to have money to spend on my children. Because let’s face it as parents we want to provide the best for our children. In order for me to work and have more money I would end up spending less time with my children. And that would make me unhappy. It was like a toxic wheel.
I always wanted a career, worked my *** off for it and once I had it I realised I had to quit because it was taking me away from my children.
I wanted to lose the weight, I wanted to be a good example for my kids. I never want my kids to be bullied because their mom is fat. But then when it came to it I never did the right things.
So I changed the whole conversation in my head and I took actions to make me happy. In order for me to spend more time with my kids I had to work less. that meant changing my career. I now have my own business that I put in part time hours every week.
Success to me means working while my children are in childcare. After 3:00 pm I love being there for them. Not just physically, but really being there for them and connecting and playing and going out and having play dates and making them laugh. My goal is to be more present with my family.
Beautiful for me meant being skinny. I never was skinny and I’ll probably never be skinny. But I am beautiful. I AM BEAUTIFUL! I love my body and I’m happy in my skin. Essential oils help me to be more healthy, to feel beautiful. The goal is to have a healthy gut, healthy brain, healthy heart, healthy body.
I now understand I have to focus on my mental health, spiritual health and physical health. If am well everyone around me is well.
