Larissa and Friends' Bookish Life

Larissa's Bookish Diary {Chapter TWO} - Highway to Health

I'm back, and much sooner than you expected hehe. This feature started from a need to share personal things and like I mentioned in the previous post, this time I'm going to focus on my constant struggle with losing weight.

When I was a kid I was very athletic. I played so many sports and I even competed in swim meets. However, at the age of eleven, I started feeling a lot of pains in my knees and after visiting a few doctors I found out that I have Poli-Rheumatoid Arthritis Juvenile, which means that I have an inflammation in all the joints of my body.

From that moment on my life was never the same. Even before all that, I was never the popular kid, I tended to fall under the "dorky kid" category and when I didn't even have sports to back me up, I became the chubby dorky kid. You can imagine that my self-esteem took a nosedive and being bullied definitely didn't help.

To help contextualize my childhood, you guys need to understand that I love my mom, but she has always been very controlling and strict. For the longest time, I didn't really have a personality of my own, her demands and punishments were too much for me to take, so much so that for 3 years (from 11 to 13 years old) I was in deep depression. I wasn't happy at home or at school, so I lived for the time I could go to bed and simply sleep.

Well, from that period on, until I was about 16, that was my life. Things started changing in 2001, when I moved with my mom and stepdad (my parents divorced when I was 14) to a different city. There I started asserting my psychological independence and I finally made friends that allowed me to find out who I really was.

Let's jump to 2006, before I get too sidetracked LOL. That was when I decided to do the Atkins diet for a couple months, resulting in me eating less from then on and consequently losing 70lb. Whilst losing all that weight, was when I started realizing some very interesting things. I have always been outgoing, but when it comes to boys, I suck (not in a good way) and because of that I started actually dating, pretty late in life. When I lost most of the total pounds I ended up losing, I thought things would change automatically, and boy, was I wrong?!

I got really depressed that things didn’t magically become better and while opening up on the subject to a friend, she pointed out that there was no use in changing appearance if there is no attitude adjustment. I woke up to it then and luckily made a new friend that was just who I needed at that moment. She was chubby as well and had a very healthy self-esteem. I learned so much from her and I will be forever grateful.

Halfway through 2007 another huge change came along, I moved to Israel to live with my dad, who had moved there 2 years before. It was the most amazing experience of my life. Living 3 years in Tel Aviv was an incredible adventure. However, during my last year there, I let go of any discipline I had and started gaining all the weight back, even more than before actually.

So here we are, 2 years after I came back to Brazil in April 2010, leaving Israel 92 lb heavier. The weight is awful for my health and it has come to a moment that I need to buckle up and do what is necessary. So, I decided to start another diet. What I am doing now is similar to weight watchers but it's online. I pay for it monthly and I get help from nutritionists that evaluate my weekly development and give guidance. It is MUCH slower, but I am drastically changing my eating habits and 11 weeks in I have lost 22lb =)

One thing I want to say before finishing up this post. After all that I have been through, I have come to realize that having an "internal" makeover is just as important, if not more so, than the physical one. I have lost and gained many pounds, but the way I feel about myself and my attitude have changed and THAT is something I have much more control over. All that makes me think that if I had the same frame of mind I have right now, back when I was in my late teens, I would have been much happier.

Hope I didn't bore you all with my story. Thank you for all the support and love you have given me in the previous post, you guys rock!

I would love for you share some of yours as well =)

Me now =D

Thanks for stopping by and I'll see you soon,

I don’t know how many of you are aware of this, but this blog started out back in 2007 as simple personal blog. My idea was to share my misadventures whilst being a brazilian girl, living in Israel. I could never be very constant with posting, especially since I had no audience to write to, so I just wrote a few posts through those first 2 years of this blog’s life, but I am extremely proud of them! If you guys want to take a look at my earlier stuff, check out the “Getting Personal” tab =D There I tell funny and weird stories and even pour my heart out many of times.

I bet right now you are wondering, why the hell am I writing about this and what is this post about, aren’t you?

Well, the thing is that I hate the fact that I have been letting the blog slip. I miss the days when I had 3 or 4 reviews a week, not to mention other posts I had a lot of fun writing. However, as many of us bloggers know, real life sometimes gets in the way and as much as we love reading and blogging, we do have other responsibilities that come first.

When I first started Book blogging, I was simply a student and I had much more control over my free time, so I tended to read as many as TWO books a day when possible and I could make the choice to just blow off classes. As an example of my obsession at the time, my book reading record was 365 books in 2009. Something I am well aware I cannot do again LOL.

Nowadays, I have a very steady and busy job, where I am constantly on demand and many kids and teens depend on me. I LOVE my job, but my reading and blogging time have been cut down so much that it makes me sad at times. One of the things I have missed the most is the exchange of thoughts between me and my readers.

That is why I decided to create this new feature. This will be like a diary for me, a place where I can share thoughts, ideas, stories, books and my journey/battle to lose weight and be healthier. I will also leave questions bellow each post and will try to incorporate your answers in the following post... How does that sound?

I don’t plan to write daily, but it will be more constant than once a week and I hope you guys will enjoy my random thoughts and stories =)