I Thought I Would Feel My “Most Beautiful” on My Wedding Day

Greetings, loving and supportive community! No wine or coffee in hand today, just Fresca (what is life coming to?).

It’s not secret that I have been married recently-tied the knot, hitched my wagon permanently to another, changed the Ms. to Mrs, all that jazz. What a wonderful blessing and challenge this has been all at the same time. While this might seem like I am going into a  “the joys of marriage”-based post, I actually have something less obvious I’d like to share on this.

Which leads me to my next point: Per one of my earlier posts (refresh your memory here) , we have established that my complete self-neglect and drive to be everything and everyone’s solution led to a large weight gain a few years back. One that became so obvious at such a breaking point for me in my life. Since then , I have been utilizing Weight Watchers for the past two and a half years to address this concern, and have had periods of both triumph and utter discouragement. It wouldn’t be a weight loss story without both of those aspects 😉

Once I hit 83 pounds lost, (woohoo!) I thought to myself “Thank goodness! I’ve lost the weight, and while I still have more to go, I truly believe that I am going to feel my most beautiful on my wedding day!”.

However, the stress of wedding planning plus trying to earn credentialing in my career tailspun me back to old habits of putting everything before my new priorities: mainly, ME. I gained 25 pounds back in the course of 3 months and was completely and fervently angry at myself.

After all that work, after all that weight loss, the old thinking patterns and way of life could come back just like that. 

I don’t know if I merely got too comfortable, or if it is truly possible for certain seasons to bring out something that you felt like you had SQUASHED within yourself, but all I knew was I hadn’t been so disappointed in myself in quite some time.

I remember getting my second fitting done for my wedding gown, and there not being enough material to close the gown fully without some skin peeking out, and my seamstress asking me, “When did you pick this up?” My answer cut me to my core: “only one month ago.” AKA 10 pounds ago.

Thankfully, seamstresses are basically magicians with needles and threads and the gown was slightly altered in order to fit my new, slightly ragged, overly driven, slowly declining self.

I remember sitting down to dinner with my (then) fiance and finally being fully open with him about how much self-anger and disappointment I was experiencing at the time about this unexpected weight gain. “Of all the times for this to happen”, I tearfully choked out, “it’s happening near the day I thought I would feel my most beautiful”.

He encouraged me that holding on to the self-anger and self-disappointment was ultimately what was going to lead me to hold on to that physical weight.

Smart guy, that one. I definitely picked a smart one who knows me inside and out.

While I can see the difference in my body from our engagement photos to our wedding photos, I in no way felt any less beautiful when the day finally came to wed the man I cherish and adore. The union that Christ was blessing us with was the most beautiful thing in the room that day, and that was the way it was meant to be all along.

So where am I now?

I’m still 20 pounds heavier than I was before “the slip” (hey, 20 is better than 25!), but what I am focusing on most is not necessarily the old habits that crept back in, but the self-anger that led me to hang onto the weight that was gained back. This was truly what led this to be a slip for me: I reinforced the gain with how I was thinking about myself at the time. How can someone who is at a loss with themselves and not seeing themselves worthy of care begin to invest in any aspect of their lives? This was the thinking pattern that I needed to wrestle with. This is the one I’m wrestling with each day afterward.

There are going to be days where this feels seamless, and days where this is going to feel near impossible. Like I mentioned before, for me, it is not entirely about diet and exercise. It is about the way in which I am seeing myself and what that means for how I prioritize my limits, my emotions, and my needs. 

For me, the feeling of “carrying the weight of the world on my shoulders” led to holding on to tangible weight as a result of this unsustainable mentality. I desire freedom from that. I believe I’ve been made for MORE than that.

One day at a time ❤

Stay tuned,

-AF