Why I Entered the Blogging World

Just the other day, an old friend from grade school wrote on my facebook wall and commented that she would have never guessed me to be a blogger. I guess I'm not sure what she exactly meant - is this a good thing? Is this a bad thing? Who knows, but the comment made did make me think why I started to read blogs, and why I actually am attempting to keep a consistent blog myself.

The reason I started to read blogs and get "hooked" on them if you will, goes back a year or two after I graduated college. Many of you that are reading this already know somewhat of the battle I through with the debate of my food intolerance/issues. Long story short, I began avoiding any foods with gluten, which then led to an expensive and unnecessary test that led the doctor to diagnose me with IBS - which then led to my journey of avoiding foods containing whole wheat, dairy and red meat. After almost a year of this, I began to realize my issues and problems were not something that my body created but something that my mind created. I was dealing with a mild form of an eating disorder and was using these self-diagnoses and food intolerances as ways to hide it.

     -side note: I realize my abreviated versions of long stories never really turn out to be abbreviated, in fact, they might even become longer versions of an already long story, sorry!

Anyway, I remember down to the date, time and place of when I was confronted about my rapid weight loss. I didn't think much of it, and to be honest, I didn't believe it. I would have never imagined myself having an eating disorder - never in my life have I ever been concerned about how I look or how much I weighed. But later that week, at Target, with a lose extra-small skirt in my hands, I glanced at myself and the mirror and almost fell backwards - I was tiny, too tiny for my frame. I came home after that trip and told my mom, and she agreed, and even worse, she has had people voice their concern to her. I knew how much I weighed, hell I weighed myself 2-3 times a day, but I never thought that number on the scale was too low to where it was unhealthy. So on that scale, with the number 104 staring back at me, I knew something had to be done, whether I liked it or not.

Since this realization, or aha moment of my life, I turned to blogs, more specifically, food blogs. I know this sounds crazy and riduclous, but it's the truth - the blogging world saved my life. Most of the blogs I began to read were written (and still updated today) by girls who had an unhealthy relationship with food and their bodies and worked to overcome this awful obstacle that left them empty and unhappy. Being able to relate to their situation, and see how they got through, in turn allowed me to realize that what I was doing to my body and mind was something horrible, and it gave me the satisfaction that I wasn't the only one going through this and that it was okay to eat- that it was okay to enjoy a cookie and not stew over it for a week.

After the start of following many, many food blogs, I found out one of my good friends from college started a blog! She was super good with her updates and it was really interesting to read, it was somewhat of an easy way to get an update of her life since we didn't live in the same city. Soon after, I found out Minn (refer to previous post) started a blog as well - which totally made sense for me to start one as well, right?

So there you have it - my reasons why I got into blogs and reasons why I started one myself. I know this particular blog post got into some deep and personal issues of the past year or two of my life, but now you know reasons for some future blog posts of mine and certain issues in today's world, specifically issues regarding girls that I may voice some strong opinions.

Time for the pool! Happy 4th to all if I don't post before!