My mom tells me that when I was in first grade I got teased, and other kids called me fat. I don't remember this. All that I remember was once we did a shadow silhouette and I thought I looked like a fairy princes and looked really pretty. After I started homeschooling, I didn't have anyone to reflect back to me what I looked like. So I lost track of the outer me, in crafts and reading, and all sorts of great stuff. I was a supper creative child, however I had two big vices, I liked to eat, and I didn't like to play outside. Looking back I know why I was a fat child, I ate a ton I would eat at least 2 Ramen Noodles at a sitting or 4 or 5 frozen burritos, stuff like that, even regular childhood energy will not compensate for that. This may leave you wondering, WHAT WERE MY PARENTS THINKING!
Well I will tell you what they were thinking and not just thinking, doing. My dad always made us eat a vegetable or fruit with our meals. He was a really prime example of eating good. Some days he would come home from work and say he had a really big lunch so he wasn't hungry, he would then sit with us through dinner and just talk to us. I always saw my mom eating good food. And I don't remember a time when either of them didn't make an effort to get good exercise in. They may not have been perfect but they did try their hardest to be a good example. But they never criticized my choices they let me be my own self. Even if that meant my own self was fat. Maybe I would have been good to not have the Burritos and Ramen in the house, but I don't begrudge them for that, plus something tells me I might have ended up fat even if I didn't eat tha
The most remarkable thing about being fat and being home-schooled was that I never got teased. I have no emotional scaring or baggage from when I was a child and was fat. That image is not who I am, or something I have to carry with me. Okay when I say I never got teased I mean, I never got teased until I went back to school. When I went to seventh grade I was walking down the hall and some kid yelled at me "hey fatty", and honestly that is the first time that I realized that maybe I was fat. Kids can be so cruel. It is sad that when a bunch of kids are put in that sort of social environment they have to tear each other down to feel good about themselves.
Mom was not oblivious to my weight. She could see that I was a chunky child. People would ask her if she was going to do anything about my weight, and she would tell them "when Natalya wants to do something about it she will figure it out". And surprise, surprise, I did. My mother never once told me that if I ate that it would make me fat. And because of that I don't have any weird love/hate relationships with food. Food is not an emotional thing with me.
I lost my chubbiness when I was 14. That summer I just decided that I didn't want to be this way anymore. I gave myself a "no, no list" stuff I wouldn't eat, started running, and I had a great support system that summer my friend Jaclyn, and my aunt Desiree all got fit that summer. What I learned that summer changed me for the rest of my life. I am a runner because I was fat. And I am glad I was fat because I love to run!
This picture was taken at the end of that summer 
