On Maintaining Weight Loss

Since 2013, I have embarked on a weight loss journey. All my life I've had an unhealthy relationship with food. When I was younger I would eat so much I would throw up after dinner. In high school, my weight yo-yo'ed a lot to +/- 10 pounds. In uni I had horrible food habits which I did not realize were that bad. I would eat very little but my diet basically consisted of Tim Horton’s bagels. Despite the weight gain, I was never self-conscious about my size. I would skip breakfast and lunch and have a bagel in the afternoon and a bagel at night with coffee. I never even liked the taste of coffee but I felt I had to drink it to help me stay awake. I have always been chubby and with my shape, it's hard to skinny. I have wide hips and ginormous boobs (34HH now) but a smaller waist which you can't really tell since my boobs protrude out so much.

By my second year of university, I had deleted all social media so I rarely saw pictures of myself on a screen and was in denial about my weight gain. It wasn't until my third year that I went on a trip with my mom to Greece and saw the pictures that I realised I had put on at least 30 pounds. This may seem insane but I honestly did not realise I was gaining weight. I would squeeze my body into Medium sized clothing and in my head I looked cute. And I was. My winged eyeliner game was very strong and I wore red lipstick to all my classes. I was feeling myself. In my head I was the same weight as in high school. Now 30 pounds is not an alarming amount of weight. Maybe others could get away with this but weight gain is very visible on me. I am also short so it looked like I had doubled in size.

Things I Wish I knew Before I Graduated College

Ah college, four years of booze filled, party going, long-lasting friendship making surrounded by beautiful New England castle-like campuses. Well, at least that’s what I expected after watching too many American college-themed movies. After going to uni in Canada, I experienced zero of these things. My expectations for college were unrealistic and I quickly cracked under the pressure, became depressed, gained Freshman 35 (thanks Mindy Kaling for the term) and barely passed my classes near the end. Every year, I have a younger cousin cousin who’s about to start college ( my dad has 9 siblings, therefore I literally have a cousin or two starting college every year). Each year, I copy paste them the same advice I wish I had learnt before starting college

1. College is hard, don’t coast –Really, it’s not easy. At first I thought it was due to the fact that I chose a complicated topic – biopharmaceutical sciences – but no matter what subject you choose to specialize in, it will be challenging. There is a multitude of readings, assignments and tests simultaneously for each class. There are sometimes additional labs and discussions groups. It can all get very stressful but the best thing to do is to manage time


2. Mental health is more important than college- In my third year of uni, I fell into a really deep depression, I gained a lot of weight, leaving the house to go to class was a hard task. I started drinking a lot and had negative thoughts. By my fourth year, it was really bad. I definitely should have looked into professional help. I switched my major and stated a minor in Psychology which helped a lot with my depression. Getting a degree should never come before your well being

Straight natural hair guilt

My 4a/4b natural hair is a lot of work. It requires constant moisture otherwise it quickly turns into a tangled mess. It doesn't respond well to shampoo and it also never wants to turn out like the YouTube tutorials say it will. For the most part, I keep it in buns and braids but eventually, even those needs to be taken out *tears*. What do I do after taking off my braids ? I straighten it. I feel very bad doing so, I can hear my sister talk about heat damage (easy to judge when you have 3C curls, please shut up). But I still go through with the frying of my hair. I am lucky my hair is so coarse that straightening doesn't affect my hair too much (so far).

Somewhere in the natural community, a cardinal rule was written that a natural shall not straighten his/ her hair or he/she will will be subject to shame and irreparable heat damage.

And yes, I agree most of the reasons why I prefer my hair straight is because it's just easier. Easier to blend in with my coworkers. Easier to do my hair in the morning, Easier to fit society's beauty standard with long stretched hair. I could go on. But sometimes, truly, it isn't a political statement. I just want to go to bed without worrying about twisting my hair for 30 minutes. I don't want to get pneumonia when working around with wet hair in the Canadian winter. These may still be superficial reasons (except pneumonia, that one is real) but I don't think that having straight hair diminishes my #BlackGirlMagic. Sometimes, a girl just wants options.