Just trying to be comfortable again..

Hi, my name is Kaitlin. I live in Seattle in a cute little apartment with my husband, two adorable bunnies and a roly poly french bulldog named Olivia. By day I work at an Organic and Fair Trade chocolate factory (so cool, right?) and by night I'm a professional lounger, book reader and day dreamer. My life is filled with flowers, tea cups, cute animals and nice music.

A couple months after my husband and I started dating I was diagnosed with MDD (Major Depressive Disorder) mixed with an expected amount of GAD (Generalized Anxiety Disorder). This diagnosis was the biggest weight off of my shoulders. For years I had pushed away (and scared off) many boyfriends. I was always sad, masking it with anger and just plain old being crazy. Eric, my husband, was special and I really wanted to figure my shit out before pushing him away as well. Eric was supportive of me taking my new medicine, and soon he saw some major changes (after a few upgrades in doses in the first few months). I finally started to feel like I could breathe, of course nothing was perfect but I felt like I could manage living my days without crawling back into bed and giving up.

The first change was my weight. I was always the skinny girl, maybe almost too skinny, but I always loved the way I looked without fail. After taking my pills for the first time in my life I started gaining weight. Fast. I now weigh over 50lbs more than I did when I first started taking my medicine. At first I was really angry about this, and then I just kept thinking 'well the weight will just stop sooner or later'. After a while I started accepting being a chubby girl, and taking pride in being a women with flaws and embracing it even. I accepted that this girl:

was no more, and this girl:

didn't need to feel shameful about it.

And I don't. I'm really and truly not shameful. Sure it hurts when random strangers ask me if I'm pregnant. Sometimes I feel guilt about ordering a soda when I'm out to eat. But I'm not shameful. I've learned to appreciate my body in ways I never could when I was thin. But the truth is:

I just don't feel comfortable.

I think that I shouldn't have to explain my decision to lose weight passed that. I just don't feel comfortable. I can't do certain things comfortably anymore, and the extra weight is making me really tired real fast. It's making my sciatica worse. It's keeping me from being as active as I'd like.

I don't want to or need to be as thin as I used to, but I would like to lose a few pounds. I don't believe in fad diets, and to be honest I really hate exercising. What I am going to do is attempt to get off of my meds and try natural alternatives. I'm going to try to cut out a lot of the fatty snack foods I've been defaulting on the last few years. And hell, I'm going to learn to love myself again regardless of my weight.

This is the most honest I've been with myself and most definately the most honest I've been with my friends and complete strangers about my chub struggle over the last three and a half years. I'm going to blog about it so I can take accountability for what I'm doing (and not doing). I have no time goals, no weight goals, just the goal of feeling better about myself.

This is my personal chub challenge.