Love, Yourself (April)

Dear Jia,

A year ago you lost eight pounds! It was pretty impressive because you didn't even have to change that much. You started paying attention to what you were eating instead of just blindly shoveling food into your mouth. It wasn't the best food, but you were awake when you were eating it. You also started drinking more water. It was so good for you. Did I mention you lost eight pounds? You can do this!

April did come with it's low points. Like remember how you thought for a minute that you might have had a hidden pregnancy and had gone into labor because everything hurt that bad? And then you thought it was uterine fibroids? And then it turned out to be a kidney stone that had you pretty much paralyzed with pain and horror. This is one of the reasons you need to keep drinking good water. Because you had a kidney stone for crying out loud and you just let it be for WAY too long.

This month you were sent an angel. Rachel, your visiting teacher came over and helped you clean. It really got you started on a path that was slowly leading you out of depression. When Rachel helped you clean, you put a bunch of plastic bottles in the closet because you had a plan to use them for something. They are still there. If I haven't thrown them out by the time this letter gets posted, then that's your chore for the day. Go throw those out. You keep the weirdest crap.

This month you weighed 241 pounds and you were doing so good. I honestly think that if the kidney stone thing hadn't happened, you wouldn't have gained the weight back like you did. You would have kept going.

This is what you looked like in April 2010. This was a screen capture taken from a video you did for the weight loss challenge. You held ten pounds over your head for 3 minutes and 54 seconds. I challenge you to beat your record.

So take a picture of yourself today, April 2011 and post it tomorrow along with the progress you have made.

Love,

Yourself