I battled with my weight my entire life. I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1998. My neurologist’s letter to my primary care physician said, Jamie is a heavy set patient in her mid twenties, blah blah blah. I remember the physical therapy place I first went to had this computer bike. One time something wasn’t working right and the therapist said to another therapist that it happens only when a heavier person goes on. When I was in 6th grade I sat down on my friends bed and a piece of wood broke or fell or something. They called me bed breaker for a year. Even had a song to Hall and Oats, Man-eater, they just changed the words to bed breaker. I was 211 pounds when I gave birth to my daughter. I’m only 5’2″.

I’ve lost weight and gained weight all my life. I was at my all time high at my daughters birth. I’d lose some of the weight and stay around the 170 mark until my divorce. It was around 2008 that I started working out. I have never liked myself in photographs and I very rarely showed my full body. First I hate how I look, second I hate how I look and third I hate how I look. You can see in this photo how my face looks, body well hidden. I started using Leslie Sansone walk away the pounds. It was easy. I did it at home. I was never going to join a gym. I still had multiple sclerosis and wasn’t going to risk falling in public like that. I’d buy other workout videos and joined weight watchers again for the umteenth time. It was slow but weight started to come off. 

A very rare body shot of me around 2009. A friend of mine, at the time, told me about beachbody and turbo jam by Chalene Johnson. This is one of those friends  who is a size ZERO and is always worried about her weight, you know, THOSE people. Anyway she turned me on to beachbody which would become my main workout source until the present moment. HOWEVER it was Tony Horton’s P90X that made a huge difference. I remember asking her, do you think I could do it and her saying no not with your MS. I must have done the full P90X program at least 15+ times. I’ve done P90X2 and P90X3, but the original is my favorite. That changed my entire body. I hit my goal with weight watchers of 145lbs.

Bought myself a $200 pair of pants to congratulate myself. I was now a size 8 and would stay this size. I’m still roughly 145lbs but I’m not as fit as I was back then. My MS does get in the way of me being able to workout like I did back then. However I still see the fat girl when I look in the mirror. I’ve been this weight now since maybe 2010, and I still see the girl who was 211lbs. Who the doctor and PT called heavyset and who the kids laughed out and called bed breaker. I see the warped sense of who I should be or who I’m supposed to look like in my head. I compare and critique, judge and dislike. I’ve wanted to accept myself for who I am, for what I am and for the weight I am but until my warped vision of myself is gone, that can’t happen. I have to start to accept because this is it, I will never be fitter than this my multiple sclerosis has advanced to the point I can’t do as much anymore. I can be thinner but I won’t maintain that. I’ve been this weight up and down but always around , I think this is just where my body feels right. It’s time, don’t you think? Why can’t I just accept this is it? I don’t think friends base friendship on how thin or fat a person is. Romantic relationships, yeah people can be superficial. However, hello this is me, take it or leave it, right? I just want to be able to say that to myself. To look in the mirror and finally say, your beautiful without an if, and or a but. It’s my ongoing struggle that has never been healed but I’m still hoping everyday for my miracle when I look in the mirror.