It was Never the Shoes

My struggles with weight loss and self love.

I have always struggled with my body image. Even before the baby when I was smaller, I never felt skinny enough, pretty enough, always felt like something was missing. Growing up in a weight obsessed culture didn’t help either. Hispanic culture loves using your looks as a form of endearment, or lack there of. Either you’re too fat or you’re too skinny. “Gordita or Flaca” It’s like Goldilocks trying to be accepted by the Latino 3 bears but nothing she does is enough. Before I had my son I was 160lbs, a size 8, a small frame, and perky breast. Sounds great, but I still didn’t feel pretty then. I felt that I could be smaller. I would go to the club and compare myself to those bodies and go home feeling terrible about myself. It wasn’t just weight, my hair was never long enough, my nose wasn’t pointy enough. However, I still went out, I still wore the cute outfits. Nobody knew the struggles because to someone else, I was probably the body they wished they had. It got bad a couple years ago. After the baby, but not because of the baby. My case was never a “struggle to snap back”, I did. I lost all the weight after I gave birth to my son. My body went back to what it was, kinda. I had bigger hips and a bigger butt this time. That sounds amazing right?! I stayed active during my pregnancy so I didn’t gain much extra weight. The struggle began later on. I developed a terrible relationship with food in the middle of my depression and it was horrible.

I have been so open about my depression in my blog and I don’t need to get into it right now, but it was bad. Food was the only thing that made me happy. In my darkest days, I knew that if I ate something I really liked, I would find happiness even if just for a little while. I needed that feeling, sometimes I needed it all day. I was a stay at home mom with a toddler and my thoughts. I had to take care of a baby and myself. If I was going to be a good mom, I had to find happiness. So I did. In food. I saw myself gaining a bit of weight so I committed to “eating healthy” and “exercise” I did this for about 2 months to look good for my 30th birthday. I did it, I lost 10 lbs and looked like a version similar to who I used to be but I still wasn’t her. I gave up quickly after my birthday and went back to the joy I knew. I no longer had a “goal” so I went back to what I knew, Food was everything, I would get my saddest when I couldn’t eat what I wanted to.

From 2021-2024 I gained 50 lbs and became someone I did not recognize at all. It wasn’t just the weight gain, it was looking in the mirror and seeing what I had done to myself. I saw a visual representation of the pain I caused myself. The weight gain wasn’t anybody’s fault. It wasn’t hormones or “you just had a baby”. It was me finding comfort in food and believing that it was the only source of happiness that existed in the world. I knew I had a problem. I sat on a couch and ate. No movement, just eating. I could not accept who I had become. I moved to Charlotte in 2023. Got a job and thought, well now that I’m keeping busy, I won’t have this need to eat so much anymore. I was wrong. Not only did I have a job now, which meant extra money to buy food but I also had a car to go get whatever I wanted. It got worse actually. I kept gaining weight. It happened so fast that I became afraid of going outside. My friends in Charlotte know a Rossy who never goes out, who’s always home and most of them thought it’s because I was older and a mom and a wife and I just have a different lifestyle, but it was anxiety. Anxiety of not looking good in anything, of going out and being out of breath after dancing one song ( I used to dance until the lights came out). They know me as someone who’s calm and a homebody, and that’s not me at all. I got married to my husband at my heaviest, 210 lbs, I never even posted photos of our wedding because I did not even recognize the girl in them. I completely lost myself. I got a job that required me to wear real clothes and I decided to stop hiding a bit. I accepted that I was now big and that’s just what I had to embrace because I would probably never see the old me again. It wasn’t self love it was acceptance.

I started learning how to dress for my body type. I would keep my hair and make up and nails always done because if your outfits are good and your hair is done, nobody really cares how big you are. I realized that, nobody cared about my weight, except for me. It never bothered anybody but me. I would complain and people would say, you’re not that big. But, I was. I could feel myself big. I felt heavy, physically. I was always tired, my body weight was hard on my legs and my ankles. What do you mean you are not seeing it? I’ve been somewhat small my whole life, 210 lbs is big. The fits were fire, but I didn’t feel fire in them. They didn’t look on me how they did in my head and that broke my heart everyday. Changing up my style and wearing cute outfits wasn’t enough because everyday I would get undressed and look in the mirror, I would cry about the girl who looked back at me. Who are you?

After I moved here, I realized that I built the dream life. Apartment in the city (not the penthouse yet, but soon), job that I love that allows me to be myself and wear fire fits, I GOT MY RED CAR, marriage, super hot husband, smart, funny and sweet kid, healed my relationship with my mother, everything was going right. But the girl in the mirror, I still hadn’t taken care of her. The person I saw was still in pain, because she was still a reflection of the damage I did in the past. I was tired all the time, I was sleeping poorly, I still ate like shit, I had night sweats, I couldn’t play with my son. It was bad. I went to the doctor at the end of 2024 and asked her to run tests on me. I said something is wrong. My hormones, PCOS, Thyroids, anything, please find something to prove to me it’s not my fault. She didn’t find anything wrong. My doctor decided I needed to go to a specialist. I think she didn’t want to tell me “hey, all that’s wrong, is because you’re overweight”. The specialist did LOL. She ran the same tests and said you’re a healthy woman, besides the 50% BMI you got going on. Let’s take care of that and you’ll be fine.

We did. I started to take better care of me. My life was otherwise perfect but it was like I created a beautiful life that I didn’t want to be a part of because of how I looked. I wasn’t in any pictures, I dressed in baggy clothes on dates, I didn’t go out, I didn’t do anything to truly enjoy the life I built with my boys because I hated myself. They needed me to be a part of it and so I set out in the beginning of 2025 to be that girl. The hot wife, the cool mom, the best dressed employee in the office. I began to heal my relationship with food. If you want to be smaller, you have to let go of the lifestyle keeping you big. In the last 7 months, I have lost 45 lbs. I have seen a girl in the mirror that I thought I would never see again. It’s been a struggle, some days are easier than others, but some days food calls me and tells me to come back. Some days i’m eating and drinking healthy, some days the ice cream wins. I understand my cycle and I take care of myself through my phases. Not every phase should be loved the same. Sometimes it’s the first day of your period and your chocolate ice cream is going to need chocolate syrup and that’s fine. It feels so weird to say I get excited to have a normal cycle, that I get to sit in my days as they come and love and care for myself accordingly. No more doubts of if it will come or not, not because of pregnancy scares but because being overweight messes everything up.

I’ve also learned that happiness can’t come from just one thing. That’s unhealthy. I find happiness in my family, in my son and my husband. I find happiness in finishing tasks at work. I have built friendships that keep me laughing til I pee. I found myself closer to God, thanking him daily for loving me through it all and the constant reminder that everything will always be okay. God has been a huge part of my journey, he has been my reassurance that I am not alone in where i’m trying to go. Happiness has to come from me. The ways I love and take care of myself and those around me. I’m not saying that I don’t enjoy eating anymore, there’s just so much more in life that brings me happiness. Who would’ve thought?

The journey is far from over. Everyday is new, but everyday is better than yesterday. Everyday I wake up and I love myself a little more than I did. I owe myself years of love because I spent so long hating myself. Writing journal entries about how trash I was. Feeding myself garbage for a slight moment of joy when my world was falling apart. Food is fuel now. That’s it. I sleep well, I don’t have night sweats. I can play with my son without struggle. (Well, a little struggle cause he’s 6 and no adult had that much energy). I’m enjoying pictures again. I’m allowing myself to be fully present and not living in anxiety of running into someone from my past and seeing how big I’ve gotten. I even stopped visiting my hometown because I was so embarrassed. I read my old journal entries and I’m proud to say, I don’t talk about myself or to myself like that anymore, I don’t see that girl anymore. So when I tell you that it was never the shoes, what I’m telling you is. I had so many sneakers I deemed “uncomfortable” “too small” “don’t fit my foot” “they hurt too much to wear to work” that now I can wear without an issue to walk for miles. It wasn’t the shoes, it never was. It was me, the weight I was carrying both physically and mentally. The hate that I carried for myself for years. There was nothing wrong with the shoes, with my health, my hormones, it was me. This journey continues, my body still isn’t where I want it to be. I want to get stronger, toner, all that stuff. But I am not where I used to be. My stretch marks and loose stomach are just reminders that I am a mother who has fought through so much to be the best version of herself for the little boy who has never seen her as any of the things shes seen herself.