Devon Volkel's Blog, page 56
September 20, 2014
September 13, 2014
She’s a bad ass bitch!
She’s a bad ass bitch!
August 27, 2014
My Before and After Weight Loss is Backwards
I’m going to...
My Before and After Weight Loss is Backwards
I’m going to share a personal story with you. (Like all my other stories cause my fake stories have contracts ;) )
Anyways, I, like many other women out there, have struggled with my body image as soon as I learned of what such a thing was. I was a skinny kid and teenager, not realizing how skinny I was until someone pointed it out. I never saw “fat” or “skinny” or “average”. I saw people. I judged the people I met by how they treated me and others around them, not the number on their scale in the bathroom. Until I found out just how cruel people could be, that is.
When I learned how America views women and men and their body types, I too fell into the opinions of most American’s. “Oh, look at how big her butt is,” or “Man, she’s so gorgeous because she fits into a size zero.” It was then I began to hyper-notice my body, the curves that were too curvy for “normal” standards, boobs that were too small, a butt that was too big, things of the like. I then began to struggle to keep that number on the scale to a good 125-130.
When I lost myself for a while and didn’t care about the numbers for a time, I found I had gained weight. Now looking back at pictures of myself in my early twenties, I was a pretty young thing with curves for days. So what if I didn’t have perfectly toned abs and thighs and biceps. I had curves and I was beautiful, but most importantly, I was a good person. I was having fun! I made amazing friends! My skin had nothing to do with the beauty I carried inside myself. But that didn’t matter because America had created this ridiculous standards on how my body should look should I be considered beautiful. I was still by no means, fat, but I began to think so.
When I got pregnant with my son, I was in good shape. I only gained 20-30 pounds. But He was born with some complications and I lost all I had put on. When I took him home, I couldn’t leave the house for six months and I was also on the depo shot-which is infamous for weight gain- I was so concerned with my baby I hadn’t noticed the scale was tipping to 210. It was then that I fell into a deep depression. My loving husband didn’t pay my weight any attention, he saw me, a good person and mother who would give a stranger the clothes off of my back. That didn’t help me from falling into a deep, dark whole where I lost pieces of myself in the darkness. Why is it that your body weight can have such control over your emotions? It is because we live in a world where they tell you and show you and advertise to you that you need to be a stick in order to love yourself. To me, I was just a big fat whale of a person who shouldn’t even show the world my ugly body, lest they be disgusted by me and forever judge me from that moment on.
When my now husband proposed, I had to get the weight off for the wedding, I just had to! And I did. I got down to 155. I was a beautiful bride. But, would I have been less beautiful should I still have been my 210? Yes!! And that is what is lost among our world today. If I had been that 210 and looked back at my wedding pictures with me and my husband and my family, would I see the sparkle in my husbands eyes as he beheld his bride? The pleasant looks of pride on my family and friend’s faces in awe at how lucky we were to have found each other? No. My eyes would have been dead locked on the fat roll around my corset and my arms that were bigger than they were in high school, and my double chin, and my….etc. Because that is what society has taught us to look at. And I think it is disgusting. But yet, I still obsess over my image.
After the wedding I let myself go and when my weight started reaching for 160 again, I panicked. I had to get it off, that horrible number on the scale suddenly defined me, who Devon is, what I did for the world and how much I would matter if that number were lower. It is an inconceivable ideology that makes young women want to be like sticks to feel beautiful. And some woman are very beautiful as skinny little things. I have just always been a very curvy girl. So, I went to do a intense diet again, and found out I was pregnant. That pregnancy led me to find a cancer, that cancer led me on a journey where everything but weight mattered, and that journey ended with a healthy, alive, and not so skinny or curvy me. Once the dust settled and I could start getting my strength back, I began diet and exercising, again. I took it too an extreme I didn’t know where it would go until I had time to stop and look at myself. I had lost all of my curves, I weighed 135, and on my 5’7”, normally curvy frame, I looked anorexic. I’m not saying that other women with those stats are, this is all about me and how I felt in my own skin. It didn’t look right.
As more bad luck should find me, I was laid out with a broken back for six weeks and after that, 9 weeks of whooping cough. I put some pounds back on during my hiatus. I got on the scale this morning and was ashamed of myself. How dare I let that number jump 20 digits. I was only not supposed to life anything for six weeks. I only had a cough that used to kill thousands of people a year and now is considered to be the 100 day cough. I only lived my life as a single mother 2 weeks out of the month. How dare I let me fall behind on the workouts and eating right to take care of me and my family! That was what was running through my head. I had all these things wrong with me, yet I blamed myself for letting myself gain the weight back. Even when all I was supposed to do was take it easy and get better. I didn’t care. I was still hard on myself. What is the fastest way I can get this evil out of me? I thought. I felt hideous. The reflection showed me someone who weighed much more than I did, but that is what I saw in the mirror. So, I took a picture of myself, the same pose that I had taken when I got down to 135 and compared the two. And I was shocked! The one on left: 135lbs, I look hideous! Me, myself, Devon, did not look like the Devon that everyone has always known. The Devon that doesn’t have the perfect body but has curves and is beautiful and doesn’t care what anyone thinks of her was no where present in that skinny frame, those dark eyes, that sullen smile. And on the right was the one I took today. AT 155lbs. I know I have a long way to go to tone it, but the Devon I see on the right is much better looking than the one on the left. I had to take myself out of my body to see what I looked like, what America accepts to be beautiful and I don’t care if I am called the worst names for my picture on the right, that is the Devon I want to me. Beautiful inside and out, with curves for days that match my bubbling personality and charm. Not some grumpy skinny twit on the left who is dying inside because all she wants is a cheeseburger and America is saying, “No, have some hummus!” No thankus! I would rather be happy in life and live my dreams than to get to 80 and say, “Well, I haven’t experienced much because I was so focused on my diet and eating that now I have 80 years of amazing pictures of myself!”
This blog is not intended to put anyone out in anyway. If that is your lifestyle, so be it! Live it up and as long as it makes you happy, do it. It isn’t working for me. Yes, I am still going to eat right and work out, but not all the time and I am not going to let the little numbers on the bottom of the scale scare away the larger than life feelings I have inside, of pride of all that I have accomplished in my life. I made a human. That’s something! I have a beautiful amazing family! That’s worth all the pounds in the world.
©Devon Volkel
August 18, 2014
Lost my hair, got back three times more of it :)
Lost my hair, got back three times more of it :)
August 15, 2014
My husband makes the best breakfast sandwiches around :)
My husband makes the best breakfast sandwiches around :)
August 13, 2014
August 7, 2014
First cut since it grew back! Getting it all one length! Thanks...
First cut since it grew back! Getting it all one length! Thanks Jamie, you did amazing!!
July 26, 2014
Give it to the Wind
Whenever life gets you down and bites at your rays
give it to the wind, and let the sun fill your days.
Whenever woes eat at your will and dig at your soul,
give it to the wind and get back your control.
Whenever bad steals your good and kidnaps your bliss,
give it to the wind and reclaim what you miss.
Whenever sorrows plague your happy and rob you of light
give it to the wind and bring starlight…
July 25, 2014
The Cough of the Whoop
So I’ve been kinda laying low these days, as it seems my life is just one rain storm after the next. I’m beginning to think I have been given my own personal rain cloud to walk under. Oh well, life’s not about waiting for the storm to pass but learning to dance in the rain, right?! So, with my whooping cough that has been plaguing my life for going on six weeks now, I am going to, yet again, try…
