One thing I have learned this past 11 years is that the brain does not always register what the eyes see.  Let me begin with me - at 424 pounds.  I was going through life every day, doing the best I could, getting my hair “just-so”, putting make-up on every day, dressing nicely, and not overly concerned about my weight - thinking I looked just fine.  I avoided most pics, but took pictures when on vacations, because that’s what you do.  I bought clothes I thought looked great on me, and lived in this tiny little world denying the reality of my size.

Turn the clock forward to July 2015, and here I am, getting up every day, throwing on my gym clothes, brushing my teeth and hair, then heading to the gym, not caring about how I looked, and if my make-up and hair are just so-so because there is no make-up or hair styling until after the gym and my shower.  That took me several years to accomplish. 

When I was morbidly obese I never left my front or back door without checking my hair and make-up first.  Today I post pics on Facebook of me holding that first cup of morning coffee, hair a mess, eyes still puffy from sleep.  The pictures are awful, but it doesn’t matter, most of the time.

I am learning to be comfortable in my own skin.  It doesn’t happen overnight, but it can happen.

I grew up with a very competitive nature.  I always wanted to be the best at everything; I competed to win, and this winning meant being better than others, prettier than others, slimmer than others, better dressed than others.  I was never quite enough for myself.  Why, you ask?  I’m not sure; it doesn’t matter to me now.  I have read enough on human psychology that I can speculate on the many “causes” however I no longer feel the need to find out the exact nanosecond that turned on my competitive nature and my desire to be “better”.  There is no longer a need to do it because I have learned on my journey to health that I am enough.

My first sense of being enough came as I was presenting my story to a group of folks who were considering having weight loss surgery.  Up until that moment I truly believed that I had chosen “the best” surgery, and that anyone who chose any other surgery was somehow “not as good” as I was.  I had an epiphany, an aha moment where the light went on in my head, and I understood that whatever weight loss surgery someone chose it was the exact right one for them at that moment in their life.  No more competing with the other “stars” in my doctor’s practice, just presenting information to folks who were looking into weight loss surgery as a possibility in their lives.  I actually cried, and so did the RNY gastric bypass patient who was co-presenting with me.  We both got over ourselves that night.

That was a big step in my beginning to accept myself for who I was in the moment, and having that person, that Sandi, be just right instead of not enough.  Taking those early morning, undone selfies and sharing them also helped me work on acknowledging who I am right now today and beginning to love and respect her more and more each and every day.

At the gym, when hiking, and at various other in-opportune times my brain still tells me to be careful because I am moving around 424 pounds instead of the 157 that I am actually moving.  I am still working on creating new paths for my neurons to fire appropriately.  This sometimes frustrates, but it doesn’t defeat me.  With concentration, I can create those new neurological pathways and WIN.  I am a work in progress for sure, and will continue to be as I create myself each and every day.

Another way I have learned to accept that I am just enough each and every day is to take those selfies, with and without hair and make-up, doing all of the things I enjoy doing and compare them to pictures I have of me along the way and remember what it was like to be Sandi who weighed 424 lobs, Sandi who weighed 324 pounds, Sandi who weighed 224 pounds….well you get the picture….  Today I can do so much more than I could last year at this time, and the year before that, and……. 

As the weight came off I began living my life and I just keep building on that life making it bigger and better each and every day, THAT is how I know I am just enough, just right, in the perfect place for the moment and I can look at those pictures of me in the moment and find flaws with myself if I choose to, or I can look at those pictures and celebrate the successes.  That is where I choose to live right now, in the moment of my successes whether it be wearing a smaller size, hiking at 10, 000 feet, avoiding trigger foods in the moment, getting my workout done, drinking all my water, or accepting a compliment by breathing it in deeply and smiling and saying thank you and meaning it.

My face has wrinkles of wisdom lines, my body is not perfect.  Those are facts.  Would I like to be able to correct those imperfections?  YOU BET!  The likelihood of that happening is slim to none so my choice is to obsess over those imperfections every time I take a picture and look at it, or accept and love me in the moment and heal my relationship with myself and the mirror.

I am satisfied with who I am and who I am continuing to become.  I am more than enough.