"Lady Gaga makes a muffin top look sexy"

I have secretly blogged for years whether for my personal journal or for my classes on marriage and family and I created this blog awhile ago to start a personal online journal for 2017, but I hid all my other posts because I wanted to share this post because I felt the need to and because I wanted to procrastinate homework...



I DO NOT like close up photo's of me because I feel like people can easily point out all my flaws. I never liked close ups of myself and sharing this photo was not easy because I hated how I looked in it. I hated my lazy eye, how my nose takes up half of my face, my crooked smile, my pale white skin that hasn't seen the sun in months, my eyebrow arch (yes, I know) and how my hair turned out that day. But I am working on loving everything about myself, flaws and all.... 

Today, I posted a comment about Lady Gaga performing at the half time show at the Super Bowl on social media saying, "Lady Gaga makes a muffin top look sexy." I didn't think anything wrong of it. She looked amazing and she preformed amazingly. I was thinking to myself, I can't even go up my three flights of stairs multiple times a day without being out of breath when reaching the top. But I was attacked. I guess I should have used a better word for muffin top like "love handles," "tummy," or "pooch" but more than half of the comments were attacking me about how that was in no way a muffin top...


I started getting really offended and really hurt. My heart started racing and I felt really dumb for posting that comment when in no way, shape, or form did I intend for it to be taken negatively. It's really hard to post anything these days with politics, body image, or anything you have an opinion on without being attacked or someone twisting your words and making you look like the bad person because I didn't mean it in a rude way or to offend anyone. I almost deactivated my social media because I felt so dumb and embarrassed. 


For those of you don't know me, I have struggled with body image (also called body dysmorphia), self image issues and I've struggled with an eating disorder over the years.

 I never sang, danced, acted, if front of anyone, EVER, including my parents. I was the shy, self-concerned girl, who didn’t think I was good at anything. Having these thoughts about myself really paralyzed me from even wanting to try to things in fear of me not being good at it or embarrassing myself. My mom ALWAYS encouraged me and was always complimenting me on my abilities and talents, but I still shrugged them off because she was my mom, she was supposed to tell me those things, right?

In high school, I lived in the Marshall Islands, and going to the beach was something we did on a weekly basis, which requires wearing a swimsuit. I remember always wearing a shirt over my swimsuit and I only ever wore tankini's or one pieces that covered my body. I was still so self conscious. I was too scared to be analyzed by other girls (where ever I was) and feel like I wasn't skinny enough or my waist was too wide. Which is funny, because my Kwaj girls, would NEVER do that yet I was so critical of my body. I built in my head that to look good, I had to be stick thin with perfect stick arms with no arm fat dangling from under my bicep and my stomach had to be completely flat without the pooch in the lower portion of my stomach (you know what I'm talking about). I wanted that perfect "Pinterest" body and every time I saw images like that on social media I would tell myself I was ugly, not skinny enough, and that I needed to look like them to be considered pretty. 

Oh boy, did that cause me a lot of heartache. I hid my body in baggy/flowy shirts and I thought my arms were so much bigger than my body that I always had some type of long sleeves  or quarter sleeves to hide what I thought was arm fat from bulging out of my sleeve.

This took over my life, I obsessed over my body. I spent hours running, working out, and eating less to loose weight, which always backfired.

 I did track in high school, something I loved, but it ended up turning into running to shed more pounds and to be skinnier, which ruined the sport for me. 

In college, it got worse and worse. I went through depression my freshman year of college and I put on weight. I had a hard time making friends and putting myself out there because I felt ugly and not pretty enough. I went through some trials that year where I laid in bed past 10:30 in the morning and barely made it to class most days and most of my thoughts were all directed towards me not being enough or looking pretty. My mom was in living Marshall Islands, halfway around the world, and I called her over 3 times a day, always crying or upset about something. Every. Single. Time. My mom wanted me to go see a therapist and I was SO embarrassed and felt humiliated that I was that low in my life.

 I ended up swallowing my pride and I went to therapy. It was really hard for me. I remember one time my therapist asked me to list 5 things I loved about myself. I sat there. I froze. It was silent for a good 2 minutes. I literally could not think about one thing I loved about myself. NOTHING, not one single thing. I started becoming emotional and cried telling him I didn't like anything about myself. I had a pooch, my hair was short and ugly, my arms were disproportionate to my body, I hated my smile, I had thunder thighs, the list went on and on. I was so overly obsessive about the things I didn't like about myself and always feeling guilty about eating a slice of pizza. Yes, a slice of pizza. One of my goals to work on was eating something I normally wouldn't eat in fear of getting fat and not feeling guilty about it after and working out on the treadmill to burn off every single calorie and then some.

It was a very hard time in my life. I was not motivated, I felt worthless and hated myself. 

Fast forward to this last year, I still struggled secretly with anything I ate. When I got engaged, I stopped eating. I had so much anxiety. I wanted to be skinny and look good in time for my wedding. I ate one meal a day and lived off of diet soda. I started dropping weight and at first, I was so happy. I was receiving compliments like "You look SO skinny!" or "You're tiny!" Those compliments fed me to keep shedding pounds. But I still didn't feel tiny or skinny at all (this is what people with body dysmorphia go through). I just wanted to keep loosing weight. My first goal was 110 pounds. As I reached that goal, I would tell myself, "No, I need to be 105 pounds," Each time I was getting to my goal, I would tell myself actually I want to be lower and it got to the point where my goal was to get to 100 pounds.  Yes, 100 pounds. Someone being 5'4, that is very low. I wanted to be under my BMI range. As I reached that "goal" of mine, I still felt empty and not satisfied. I thought that since I couldn't control certain things about my body, at least I could control my weight.

 If I gained one pound (even if it was water weight) I made sure I wouldn't eat that much that day so I could loose that ONE extra pound. I thought I would "FEEL" skinnier and love myself when I reached 100 pounds.  I was mentally sick and I struggled with it by myself because no one understood until my anxiety over came me about school, planning a wedding, and obsessing over myself, I went and saw a counselor for a couple weeks before I got married. 

When I got married, I thought, "I'll be happy with whatever I look like because I'm married and I don't need to impress people as much now." Boy, was I WRONG. It became more obsessive. Not only was I worried about my weight, now I had to worry about not getting pregnant because I had panic attacks thinking about getting pregnant and gaining weight. It mortified me and I would lay in bed creating scenarios in my head. I did NOT want to gain weight.

 I ate maybe 1-2 meals a day, small proportions and just kept drinking Diet Coke every day. When I would see I was loosing weight even more, or someone would compliment me, it only motivated me to keep going. My husband started recognizing my patterns and would sit and watch me eat till all my food was gone and kept pestering me about eating and what exactly I was going to eat for certain meals. Again, I felt ashamed. I went and saw a counselor again. I felt embarrassed I had to go get help, once again, for something I felt like wasn't as big of a deal compared to many other people who actually go see therapists for more important problems. I ended up going on medication for anxiety and depression, which helped me, since I couldn't help myself. My medication made me loose my appetite even more and I found myself "forgetting" to eat. We had a family vacation in California coming up and I thought it was the perfect opportunity to try to look good in a bathing suit. I don't share these things for you to pity me or feel bad for me. I share this with you guys because I want you to know it is okay to get help. Do not be ashamed. Getting help was the best thing I could do for myself since my mom and husband couldn't personally help me.

This is something I struggle with up to this day. Some days, I stare in the mirror wishing to change certain things. Some days, I don't even want to leave the house because of it. Some days, after trying on a certain shirt or pair a pants, I end up on the floor crying with piles of clothes on the bed that I tried on crying to my husband and telling him, "Im ugly," or "I look big." It is a never ending battle in my head. 

Tying it into before this whole rant (and if you've made it this far, I promise I'm almost done), I posted that Lady Gaga comment because I felt like for the first time, I saw a celebrity that I admired, who looked normal. Who didn't have an unrealistic body. When I find myself browsing on people I see on Instagram or Facebook, I always come across girls who have no ounce of fat on them. They look perfect with no flaws. As I read countless comments on pictures, I too,  wanted people to comment on my pictures of myself like they do on others saying, "UR PERFECT BYE" or "I can't even," "K BYE" or any of the other social media lingo we use to tell someone they're pretty, but really now looking at it, are those really compliments? Like what does that even mean?

 So it was really refreshing to see a celebrity who had a normal realistic, achievable, body. She was not scared about what people might say in spite of it and she rocked it. I loved that she was comfortable in her own skin and she's not like most stick thin celebrities, bloggers, or famous people today. She was relatable and I could relate to her because I could never go on stage whether I did have a good body or not and show off my stomach in fear of embarrassing myself or having people criticize me, especially in the SPOTLIGHT! I mean common. They are brutal the Hollywood world. All I was stating was that I loved how a well known celebrity showed off her body in a way that not only was respectful, but she showed it off in a way that portrayed herself as a normal human being without trying to hide that little pooch (or whatever you personally like to call it) that 99% of all of us women have!

What I am trying to get at is, we are beautiful daughters of God.We should never feel ashamed about our bodies. They do incredible things! We are all different shapes and sizes and we should be proud of it. Its something I work at daily (trust me), but I have come to try to love the body God has given me. I'm healthy. I have two legs.  I can see. I can hear. I can breathe. I can create the gift of life from my own body. I can feed my baby with my own body. The body is something we should never ever take for granted. The world has created such high unrealistic expectations for girls in this society. Its hard being a girl and every girl knows that!

 I will never understand why us women can be so brutal to one another when we all know how hard it is living in this generation with all of the expectations that society holds us to. I know all of us women, whether its a daily battle, or at certain times have had negative thoughts about their bodies and self image. Social media holds us to this standard of beauty and if we don't look like that, we're not pretty. I have spent countless hours scrolling through Instagram looking at peoples perfect lifestyles and bodies wishing I could look like that. It is emotionally exhausting and I don't know why I do it because it only makes me more upset about myself after looking at it. I want to spread love and positivity through social media and not feel attacked because I was just standing up for something I am passionate about. People are always going to have something negative to say, unfortunately, but don't let that paralyze you and stop you from sharing what you are feeling or what you believe.


Let us all love each other, ourselves, and spread positivity. We are all beautiful and blessed with so many talents and abilities! Heavenly Father created us with divine worth and we are all special! Negative thoughts are from Satan. Love yourself, you are perfect just they way you are and you don't need society to tell you how you need to be to love yourself. Love yourself for who you are right now. It's definitely something I need to work on every single day, but I am so grateful for the healthy and capable body I have been given to do the Lord's work here and to strive to be that positive light in this dark world. You are beautiful and God LOVES YOU!