Thursday, December 9, 2010

My Quest for being Fit, Confident & Re-Discover the Meaning of Happiness

Do you ever feel like you are fighting a battle of some sort sometime in your life? I am constantly fighting two specific battles in my life. I would like to share with you some of my inner thoughts, feelings and secrets here. If you suffer from the same symptoms as what I do or has been through, please drop me a story or so for us to give encouragement to each other.

I came from a highly well educated family with my dad working for the Hong Kong’s Correctional Services and mom working for the Hong Kong Educational Bureau; they have high expectation for both me and my sister. I am not a very bright girl, mathematics was the worst of it all. No matter how much of studies and remedial that I have to go through, still my grades are not up to my parents standards.

I always disappointed my mom and she will just beat me really hard, chase me out of the house and I have to wait until morning to come back inside. Because of her disappointment, my mom always has many contemptuous phrases for me to express her anger: “Many people die every day and why not you?” “Since you are so stupid, why don’t you rush out to the road and get yourself killed?” I heard all these throughout my life. I totally lost any remaining confidence in myself.

Mom always compares me with my sister. She is a very smart girl, did well in academics, but I excel in sports. Mom never encourage what I am good at because according to her sports won’t get me far. The only time I felt confident in myself was when I was doing sports but I am not allowed to pursue in this field.

I studied in a very prestigious Catholics School in Hong Kong, everyone is of good parentage, rich families and all dress very well. Being a Hong Kongers we felt the pressure in dress up smart and weight watching already even in this young age. My parents are not thin people; I didn’t inherit a thin body frame from them. As I was growing to up, slowly I began to gain weight. It became socially unacceptable, so at school, I don’t have many friends; I am never a popular girl.

In order to be in the “IN” crowd and I want to feel confident about myself again, I took one drastic move. I went to the pharmacy and ask for the slimming pills for obesity people. I didn’t do any research on this and the pharmacy personnel simply sell what they have in stock, I said I wanted powerful and fast ones, then I got it.

I don’t remember the name of the drugs that I took already, it has three levels to take, I took the high level dosage. Within half a year I went from 130Lbs to 115Lbs!!! But that half a year was a night mare for me. I couldn’t sleep, couldn’t eat, constantly sweating and shaking. Could not concentrate on studies because I would be sleeping in class since I did not have any sleep at all at home because of the effect of the drugs. I didn’t know how dangerous it was until my heart could not take it no more. I could not stand the constant fast beating, I had to stop.

Once I stopped, of course the weight slowly crept back up. It was scary. Still I never really thought about how to lose weight properly. I did gain back some confidence in me; still I felt something is not right. I knew the drugs have done some irreplaceable damage to my body system already.

Image is very important to everyone nowadays as of healthy living. But why media always simply just portray stick thin girls and celebrities and said these are the “IN” people the “IT” Girl? Why don’t they also portray that stick thin models die of starvation and anorexia? I think they should portray more healthy and sporty girls instead of stick thin girls. The pressure to be thin doesn’t affect me so much now since I started going to the gym and now into outdoor sports.

Now, when I look at myself in the mirror, I am happily seeing myself having tanned skin and a fit not thin body. I am not very concern about being thin now and I am more concern whether I have enough time after work or during weekends for my sporting activities.

I discovered that by doing sports you are not only gaining a bigger social circle of friends, you also gain a better and healthier body, sports also keeps you younger and euphoric. I sincerely hope that more people will get out from the comfort of their living room and couch and join in our active healthy lifestyle. Why wait anymore, it’s time to get moving, stay active and re-activate the energetically lively part of you.

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