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| Before & After |
I'm an over achiever and I love Wonder Woman, she does everything, which explains my belief on doing everything I can in life. Baking, reading, singing, writing, playing my guitar, and painting are just some of the other interests I love besides health & fitness.
In the summer of 2010, my family took a vacation to Disneyland and there were tons of pictures taken. I couldn't even look at the pictures anymore because I wanted to cry at who I saw in those pictures. I didn't see me anymore, I saw a person who was trapped in an unhealthy body. I was sick to my stomach and I had a fear of going to sleep one day and never waking back up. This became my fear because yes, my heart would skip beats multiple times throughout the day. I couldn't ignore those signs anymore.
I needed to SHAPE UP to WAKE UP!!!
On August 24, 2010, I believed in myself and I got up, got dressed and walked a mile. Now, that's a breeze but to a person who had been hibernating for years, that was killer!! Everyday after work, I would walk a mile. At first I hated it. I realized how much of a stress reliever those one mile walks would have on me and the endorphins I was feeding my body made me feel good. Eventually, my mom made me walk half of a mile and then run the other half so that I could start doing more than just walk. Proudly, she made me walk one mile and then run another mile. 2 miles sucked at first but then you get used to the workout and then you realize you can do it once you've done it so many times. Especially when you go YOUR OWN PACE!
I didn't step on the scale till a couple weeks later to realize I lost a couple of pounds. I was sporting a smile on my face and I haven't stopped sporting that smile ever since. I hardly ever stepped on the scale to weigh myself simply because I wasn't interested in how much weight I was going to lose. I started eating healthier and substituting healthier options for my foods. Its all about eating smart and working out. Eventually, a year passed and I weighed myself for the first time in months and learned I had lost 31 pounds total from my starting point to now.
I didn't get in this to be "SKINNY" I made a lifestyle change, I made a life decision to get healthy. This isn't a short term goal, this is for the rest of your life. I had a purpose for all of this; For the sake of my health.
I had always been embarrassed of my weight and I never told my family how much I weighed. I was proud of myself and worked so hard to get here that I, for the first time, told them how much I weighed from beginning to end.
FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER, I'M REVEALING MY WEIGHT TO THE WORLD!!!
(highlight below)
- August 24, 2010: 165 lbs.
- August 24, 2011: 125 lbs.
- Current: 122 lbs.
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| Before & After picture |
At the age of 20, I can say for the first time in my life that I am comfortable in my own skin. I see beauty when I look in the mirror. Prior to August 24, 2010, I hadn't stepped on a scale in practically 3 years, maybe even a whole whopping 4 years. My weight was a mysterious number, it was the unknown that I didn't want to come to terms with.
This is the story of why I wanted to change & get healthy, be fit and redefine the medias perception of beauty.
Growing up with an older sister who was a signed child model was really exciting & interesting to me. I was an 8 year old watching as she got her photos taken as a job. When I grew older, I would see super skinny models and wonder where all the normal ones were. Sure, some women are born naturally thin and even naturally thinner than most. When you see the women in Hollywood, the first thing to come to your mind is, "Wow she looks great, she's skinny! I wish I looked like her". It's normal for a woman to love gossip and then even make it worse by revolving our time looking through magazines and all you see are women in Hollywood with smokin bodies. We started paying attention so much to those crazy celebrities that our definition of beauty changed forever.
Skinny became the new fit.
Bones became the new beauty.
Sick became the new healthy.
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| Modeling at 8 years old |
In middle school, I was rather thin and I can safely say that I don't remember ever looking in the mirror telling myself that I was "fat" or "ugly". I can't recall a time I spent a moment worried so much about my looks. Most people say college or high school are the best years of your life but I can honestly say that middle school was, is that weird? I was a happy teenager; I had my friends to get me through tough times and almost more than half of the time, I was smiling, laughing and enjoying life.
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| 7th grade with one of my friends |
As a senior in high school, those so called find yourself years can't be remembered as prom queen or the athlete, not the schools best artist or actress. I was an average girl who didn't have a prom date, I had 3 or 4 boyfriends all through out high school, which were silly and lasted no longer than a month, if that! As fun and enjoyable middle school was for me, high school was the complete opposite. I had dealt with two deaths for the first time in my life. One while I was finishing my sophomore year and then another as I was entering my junior year, they were only 6 months apart. You could say that I was heartbroken and didn't have friends to lend their shoulder to cry on and I'd tell you, you were right. At 16 years old, I didn't know how to handle it and I didn't wear my heart on my sleeve so I just bottled everything up as best as I could.
It's common for people to eat when they're depressed or stressed...or when they're bored. Thankfully, I have never had that problem. When I was dealing with the deaths, I was stressed and depressed, that lead to the beginning of my weight gain. I'm not blaming anyone for my personal struggles, I'm telling you early on that there are multiple reasons why you start gaining weight. Sometimes it's the things you don't even pay attention to.
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| Senior Prom 2009 (I'm on the right) |
In May of 2009, I graduated high school. I was really relieved to be leaving everything I had dealt with in high school because they were nothing but reminders of how much I hated it.
Summer came around and I was reaching my heaviest weight EVER. I remember I would wear jeans in the summer and try to avoid wearing shorts in the scorching Texas summer heat when and If I could. My legs would rub against each other when I walked and I couldn't even cross my legs when I wanted to sit like a lady! Looking back, I now understand why my mom kept telling me to workout. I seriously just got mad every time she told me, I thought she hated me and was out to get me. It naturally seems like that and of course I ignored her and didn't work out, I still ate unhealthy foods and packed on pound after pound.
College had come around and after my first year, I decided to take a break and focus on my singing career. For the first time ever, I had seen myself through another person's viewpoint of me. This happened because of two reasons:
1) I had acting lessons with a coach and she would film us reading lines and then we would watch it at the end of class.
2) In December, I created a YouTube channel for my music and when I watched back, I didn't like what I saw.
For the first time, I saw how much weight I had gained. I knew that if I wanted to change and get healthy, it didn't matter how many times my mom would tell me to work out, it didn't matter how many times I dreaded waking up to get ready for the day and not have clothes fit me, nothing would make me change unless I was the one who made the decision to change. So I woke up one day, looked in the mirror, wanted to go to sleep that night and still be able to wake up to see the morning. I changed.
I will be honest and say that I started all this, like I said before, for the sake of my health. If you are only in this to get skinny, you're going to give up a lot faster, especially when you don't see the results you expected to see. That brings me to another point, I had NO image in my mind of what I wanted to look like or how much weight I wanted to lose, I just worked out and ate better, for my heart. I can't stress enough to people that getting fit is a commitment you make for the rest of your life.
Fit is the new Skinny
Fit is the new Beauty
Fit is the new Healthy
-Angel
