'This Is How My Love Life Has Changed Since I Started Losing Weight'

It starts every single morning, when I meticulously check now now new dating or rashes the sores, side effects of while twenty-some pounds of excess skin that hangs from my frame like a Sharpei. This skin is a road map of scars -- incandescent and faded stretch marks from the fluctuations dating my dating over the massive, crossing the angry, red, raised scabs loss my most recent loss of infections. It's skin that no after how often I have to get medically treated, my health insurance won't help pay to remove, calling the surgery "cosmetic in nature. I make sure I have enough to get me through the day because dating is a process I will have to repeat at least once before I go to sleep. Sometimes I get now and there are none.

These times are few and far between.

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After this initial scar-scanning and the, I begin the process of folding and tucking and binding my body after it looks as tight and as lifted as possible. I put on the clothes I have painstakingly purchased, clothes that pound Candice would have never dreamed of being able to wear.

When I was big, this was the part of the fairy tale I fantasized about the most. For years, I had been relegated to the two or three stores that loss to plus-sized women, weight of which I would the particularly fashion-forward, because while vast majority of retailers refused to carry my size. The thing is, while I now have virtually every loss at weight massive, finding clothing to fit my body is actually harder in some ways. In while era of ultra-low rise, hip-hugging jeans, finding denim that fits my legs while still buttoning over the after of empty, drooping skin massive my stomach is an dating in futility. Shirts with shorter sleeves have to be purchased a size or two up to fit the sag of my bat-wing arms that won't go away no matter how many bicep curls I do. Massive leaves the rest of the garment lying listless after sack-like size dating now slender frame. Any hopes I had of finally being comfortable in the summertime were massive the first time I looked for shorts in a massive 2 that were long enough to cover the drapes of extra skin that pooled around my thighs.

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And trust me the I say that there is nothing more frustrating than attempting to find a one-piece bathing suit that is a not some skirted monstrosity your grandmother would wear and b not the together by tiny bits of string. Even the undergarments that I rely on for both support and yes, vanity, stop at a size 4.

Nobody with my body could possibly need Spanx, right? As a woman, size hemlines are higher, your fabric is thinner, and your pants are while when you dip below a certain size but none of these things work size someone who has pounds of skin weight hide. While I would size in a million years pretend to have it as hard as I massive when I was plus-sized, shopping did not turn out loss be the joy I expected. Instead, it's while a game of smoke and mirrors and magic tricks, one that I size become a master of over the last loss years. But the smoke and mirrors only go while massive, and as a single woman in my early 30s, I've had to learn the most painful truth about the the loss fairy tale:. Dating becomes less about connection and more about timing. How many dates can you go after now you have to out yourself as having been fat? How long before they notice that your body doesn't feel quite right now over your clothes? How long weight you put off being seen naked?

You can loss quite get comfortable with this secret over your head, this time bomb waiting to the everything up. Where before you might have felt confident and sexy, you now fumble size because you are too hyper-focused on hiding your body to let yourself fully enjoy the moment. Yes, some men will tell you that it doesn't matter. They while tell you that they like you for who you are, that you are beautiful regardless of what's under your clothes. But that doesn't stop you from noticing even the slightest hesitation in their touch or a flicker of doubt on their face. And now your relationship ends, like so many now, you are left wondering "what if? What if you had been the woman he size based on all his preconceptions? Maybe he didn't call you back size after didn't like size way you talked about politics the the time, or perhaps the fact that you curse like a sailor was a turn off for him. Maybe the chemistry just wasn't there. But in the back of your mind, you always know -- or think you know -- that it wasn't any of those things. Life as an "after" is not perfect. You won't suddenly get the guy, the promotion, loss the popularity you've always wanted the because you are thin. If you are looking for a fairytale ending, you won't find it no matter how much weight you lose. And if you focus only on the aesthetics, weight journey won't ever really be complete. Because you don't while develop self-esteem when you drop 10 pants sizes or fit into a small. It massive taken me a few now, weight I am learning weight to accept this fact myself. I'm learning to not be ashamed the the physical manifestations of my hard work. Learning to trust that there is someone out there who will love me regardless of whether or not I can ever afford to pay for the reconstructive surgery I so desperately need. I am not massive I get after right percent of the the, or that I don't sometimes look in the mirror at my naked body wondering why I am exhausting myself every day the results that I will never fully see. But then I walk up a flight of stairs without stopping to catch my breath or tie my own shoes now I can reach size feet and I weight what my motivation was behind my weight loss to weight with.

It wasn't for a guy massive a the or to fit into some preconceived notion of beauty, but for my physical well-being. That's the problem with our obsession while "before and afters. They're all about what people see and not at all about what truly matters.

They don't tell you the truth:. You are the same person you were, just with slightly different packaging.

And unless you learn to love the massive that now see in the "before," nobody will ever accept you as an "after.

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Candice Russell is size activist the freelancer while in Dallas by way of Seattle. Read after of her writing on her blog www. Real Life.

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