The "Skinny" on my Relationships

Friends & Love

Dedicated to the wonderful women who have stood by me! Enjoy the pictures of my beautiful best friends.

Many of you see this title, and are probably wondering "Why is Aley talking about relationships?" The answer is very simple! Relationships affect how we feel about ourselves. How we feel about ourselves can affect our body image, and thus our weight.

When I say relationships, I don't just mean my previous experiences with men. I am talking about my relationships with guys, friends, family....the whole sha-bang!

I use to let myself get walked all over by people I was close with in the past. My downfall is that I was too nice. I NEVER stuck up for myself. This personality flaw of mine caused me to be in relationships with people that weren't the greatest for me. These friends and ex-boyfriends were rude, mean, jealous, and just not good humans!

I am definitely not an expert about anything in the love department, but I have learned a lot in the past two years of my weight loss journey. Being with someone who supports you, and makes you feel beautiful 100% of the time is completely necessary! This person should make you happy and bring joy to your life, not added stress. If your love interest makes you feel bad about the way you look, or brings unhappiness to your life ------

                                                                         JUST LET THEM GO.

I found that having these type of boyfriends just made my life hell. I have had assholes tell me some pretty ridiculous things! I've been told that "Girl you're cute but if you wanna be hot you need to work a little bit harder in the gym", or "Why are you eating that? Don't you want to look more like your skinny friends?", or my personal favorite "You are alright, but you're body isn't my type and I don't like your hair color. I like brunettes who look skinny".

Those things were heartbreaking to hear. They caused me to feel so bad about myself. But ironically it was because I felt so bad about myself that I stayed with these lame excuses for men! They continued to make me feel worse about myself by putting down my looks, and ironically I continued to eat my feelings.

Significant others aren't the only people who can have this affect on me either! Friendships can be just as negative. Girl are AWFUL. AWFUL. I have the type of personality where I won't stick up for myself even if someone is deliberately tearing me down. Bullies pick victims, like myself, and go after them again and again!

First of all, bullies are only mean to people because they feel bad about themselves. I was purposely left out of groups or parties, made to feel like I was weird, and treated like the scum of the earth. And while I can go on and on about what horrible people these girls were, the real problem lied within me. 

Why didn't I ever stand up to these bullies? I was scared. I felt awful about myself, but I was so scared that if I ever stood up to them they would make my life 10x worse. So I just stayed mute. And instead I ate. I ate sooo much food. I would come home from high school, and just eat all night. I would eat chocolate chip cookie dough and diet coke as an after school snack, a burger or pizza for dinner, then maybe ice cream or candy before bed. I felt awful! And the only way I knew how to deal with that was to eat. The saddest part of that whole experience was that I considered these bullies my friends.

I can say without a doubt in my mind, that the bad relationships I had with my boyfriends and girlfriends were the biggest reasons for my obesity problem. When I first realized I had an obesity problem and was trying to conquer the weight, I came to this realization. I knew then that I would have to cut out all bad friendships and romantic relationships that every caused me to feel bad about myself.

Two years later, and I have never had a more fulfilling social life! My girlfriends are amazing. When I moved to KU, I chose very wisely who I was going to be close with. I now have a circle of close girlfriends, who I am certain that I will remain inseparable with for quite some time. We all love each other, and no one intentionally tries to put others down. And while I am not saying I am the "perfect friend", I feel all of us aspire to be that for each other. We are genuinely happy when one of us succeeds, and feel for each other in rough times. Through out my weight loss process they have stood by me, and at every weight they have continually told me that I was a beautiful person. And now that I have succeeded in reaching my goal, and have made a new goal to help spread awareness about obesity- they stand by me 100%. I don't think I could ask for better fans! They read every blog, give me advice, and help me stay focused. I have been blessed to have found these true friendships, and I thank God every day for bringing them in my life! That is why I have plastered their photos all over this blog:)

As for my experience with men, I have not been as successful! When you lose so much weight, your body changes dramatically- while your mindset stays the same. I had such little self-esteem and low self  worth for the longest time. I was just so happy that any man was paying me attention, I didn't even realize it was negative attention!

After making some bad decisions, dating a ridiculously large amount of jerks, and lots of crying while eating frozen yogurt & watching Nicolas Sparks movies with my girlfriends to console myself,
 I have finally made some strides in the right direction when it comes to men! If a man does not support what you are doing, doesn't make you feel beautiful, doesn't make you happy, doesn't act that into you, doesn't make your life better.....
JUST DUMP HIM.

Life is way to short to not feel good about yourself. And as proven with me, if you don't feel happy in your relationships it can have serious effects on your health! You are the most important person in your  life. We are taught that having low self-esteem is bad, but that having pride in ourselves is cocky. There is no shame in loving yourself enough to know that you deserve better.

Loving yourself for the right reasons, and demanding that you get treated with nothing less than respect isn't being cocky. It's called being healthy.