A love for yourself is the best kind of love.

I used to hate my hair and my body more than anything. I used to wish I was a skinny white girl with luscious blonde hair. Not only was I overweight, but I did not like my skin tone or my hair. I don’t really know why, I guess because I never knew my black family since my dad wasn’t a part of my life and my mom is white and I only knew her family, and all of my friends were white too. My older sister was the only woman I knew with the same hair as me, but she went through a phase where she hated her hair too and she would only ever straighten it, and now she hasn’t straightened it in years. So I guess I felt out of place? I straightened my hair every single day. I would not go to school without straightening my hair either. But over the last two years, I’ve slowly learned to love my hair. I don’t really know what happened, but I guess I was just starting to realize just how beautiful it is. I really love my real hair. It was always hard to accept it because I felt like other people thought I was prettier with my hair straightened as well, my first boyfriend told me “I think you’re less attractive with curly hair.” I always wore my hair straightened so no one really saw me for what I really looked like. But yesterday was the first time I straightened my hair in quite awhile and I did not like it! I never thought I would say that. I wanted to get my hair wet so bad so I could see my real hair again. Don’t get me wrong, I know I will straighten my hair every now and then in the future, but I love myself a lot better the way I am. I love myself naturally. I love my skin tone and I love my body. I worried too much about the opposite sex, because I felt like no one would ever like me for who I am. But they do like my skin tone and they do like my hair! I also really love my body and I’m amazed with what it can do when I really put the effort. Two years ago, I never thought I’d love running and yoga. I look at my body in the mirror now and I’m satisfied with what I see. No, I’m not really there yet, I still want to tone up but when I see myself in the mirror all I see is accomplishment. I’m so much smaller all around, and sometimes it’s strange because I’ve been overweight all my life. I love looking at my back the most because I’ll never forget the first time I really looked at my back and I started crying my eyes out. Now I have a perfectly flat back and I feel so proud of myself. It has taken years to accept myself as I am. Some days I really don’t feel so confident, but I would never again wish to be someone else. I’m a beautiful combination of my mother and father and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

This is the last one I’m posting for today. I tried to find an after photo that someone took of me but I couldn’t, because I usually always take mirror photos. I’m amazed at the difference you can see in these photos. My face, stomach, boobs, and arms are obviously a lot smaller. And you can even tell I take more care of myself in the after. I didn’t even want to take the before, I was miserable. I was 185 in the before & 137 in the after.

I’m re-posting this because I like this angle better. I haven’t done a before and during in awhile so I’m specifically posting these two photos because I wanted to in December but I didn’t have the before photo on the computer until now. The before was Christmas 2010 and the after was last year. I feel like you could see even more of a difference if I weren’t standing sideways in my during, but you can still see quite a big of a difference. When I see the before, even now after I’ve gained back a couple pounds, I can’t believe how much I’ve changed in my appearance. If I can do something as extraordinary as this before then I know I can do it again. This was a 48lb difference, 185 vs 137. I WILL get down to 137 again and then lose another 17 pounds so I can be at my 120 goal :)

This is my dirty foot and you see my toe is bleeding? Yes, I got a blister from running. However, this was my best run yet, aside from the fact that I had to quickly stop to clean my cut. I ran sixty minutes which is the longest I have ever ran!! The longest I had ever ran before was 42 minutes and that was just yesterday so I jumped 18 minutes in just one day. One of my new year’s resolutions was to run for an hour so I can now cross that off my list. Plus it was pouring down rain! My clothes were soaked, it was like someone poured five buckets of water on me. I’m so proud of myself :)

A big thumps up to me because I’ve had plenty of chances to mess up on my “diet” these past two days but I didn’t take them. Granted, yesterday I went to Jack in the Box because I was with my boyfriend and he wanted to go but I ordered one of the lowest calorie foods on the menu and instead of eating a whole thing of fries, my boyfriend and I shared them. And I had a box of brownies in my kitchen and I opened it and even picked one up but I put it back down. I feel like if I can resist that then I should be able to have the will-power to resist other things as well :)

These heels are so cute, I’m stealing them from my sister!

This was me earlier today. I just got back from a run! I don’t wear my hair down when I’m running. I put it up in a pony tail but I put it down for this photo. All natural, no makeup and my real hair. Hahah.

This photo is proof to me that I do feel so much better about myself in general. I never thought the day would come where I’d begin to start loving my real hair. My real hair is wavy, curly, poofy, and crazy. It gets crazier than this.. My hair wasn’t dry all the way when I took this photo. But I love it. I used to always think it made me so ugly but now I know it doesn’t. There were a lot of things about myself that I needed to learn to love, not just my body. I also hated wearing my hair in a poinytail because I thought it made me look like a boy, but in my previous photo, that’s obviously not true.

And I really love my arms now. I still have a lot of work to do, but I do feel good about the fact that I can wear this without feeling insecure. I used to NEVER show off my arms. I’m trying to remind myself every day that I am beautiful.

My dear friend http://sand-river.tumblr.com made me this scarf! :)