Hitting her heaviest of 85kg (for her height of 165cm) after the birth of her daughter, Vyriella Lee thought she could somehow “miraculously lose the weight via breastfeeding like most mothers do”, but it did not happen for her.
“I remembered getting upset at my husband for making me look so fat in pictures. But it was never his fault; I was already fat to begin with. I hated to look at myself in the mirror because I would get really frustrated with my body. I kept buying a lot of clothes to fill the emptiness inside of me, yet I felt that whatever I wore just didn’t look nice on me,” said the 42-year-old self-employed mother of one.
Constantly feeling like people are judging her, Vyriella grew up with her family labeling her as “fat”. Being an ex-offender didn’t make things any easier either.
“Being an ex-offender in this digital age has made it SO HARD for individuals like myself, who had brushes with the law, to reboot our lives on a clean slate. I have been talked down to by people I love many times and even got escorted out of office when they find out about my past. That affected my mental state badly and hating how I looked in the mirror just made things worse. My sex life was somehow affected as well, due to my lack of self-confidence, which in turn affected our marriage and I found myself slipping into post-partum depression,” she added.
Her wake-up call came one day last June when she was nearly knocked down by a car whilst carrying her daughter. “That made me realise that I wasn’t afraid of death. In fact, I was hoping the car had knocked me dead but it didn’t.
“Then almost immediately after thinking that, I got jolted to my senses that I cannot deprive my daughter of her chance of happiness in life. She was only 14 months then and still had a long way ahead of her. As the saying goes, a happy mom = happy kid, so I started taking active steps to lose weight, exercise and eat healthy.”
Although Vyriella feels that she is still far from where she wants to be, she is happy because she knows she is on the right track. She feels it is important for her to be an example to her daughter by embracing her body and keeping healthy, understanding that all of us come in different shapes and sizes.
“I initially hated motherhood because of how I looked but I’ve managed to get past that. I hope that me being so raw and upfront about myself will inspire all women to focus on the good and love themselves. We need to learn to celebrate, no matter how small the win is.”
*This is a collaboration between Rock The Naked Truth and Pink Salt
