I mentioned in a previous post that my oncologist asked if I wanted to live. I was flabbergasted by his question because of course I did! I wouldn’t have gone through two surgeries if I didn’t. What I learned he meant was whether or not I was willing to make some lifestyle changes, to do some things I was not accustomed to doing in order to help in the prevention of cancer and my overall health.
To give some history to this conversation I have been trying to put off is that since I was a really young girl I have always been considered plus size. I was never a size 2, more like a size 5, 7 or 9 type of girl. My weight was never a real factor to me even though my family was always warning me to watch it before I blew up like a house. Fast forward to right before I started college when I learned of the dreaded “Freshmen 15”, which is the amount of weight incoming students usually gain in their first year. Unfortunately, for me it was much more like the “Freshmen 30”! Before I knew it, over the course of 4 years in college I gained nearly 100 pounds. Yikes! Right?! It seemed like it snuck up on me.
Before I knew it, I was shopping at stores like Wet Seal then all of a sudden at Lane Bryant. Now this was the Lane Bryant that was pre “Plus is equal” and “love your curves.” This was a huge shell shock. The clothing options were much more mature than I preferred, but I really didn’t have a choice. Neither could I really afford to wear their clothes, but again, I didn’t have much of a choice at the time seeing as though my go-to stores like TJ MAXX or Forever 21 didn’t carry my size. I had so few options in my size that naturally, like any other college student, I got a credit card to begin buying my first plus size items. I was embarrassed to even carry the bags out of the mall. This was just the beginning of my weight issues...
