One of my long time dreams was to write a book or get published. Here I am, at age 45 and still working on becoming a published author. I have finished my PhD in international education, and while I love the research I am involved with, a couple of my greatest passions are fashion and shopping. For some reason I never thought I could go into that field so here I am trying it out and see where it leads me.
I have been dealing with a negative body image for a long time. I grew up in Brazil where a size 4 was considered fat; therefore, I was told to go on diets most of my life. When I moved to the US in 1998 things changed a little bit until I started gaining weight. I was away from home and family and with the harsh winters of the midwest, I was eating too much and not exercising enough. So I gained over 50 pounds and had to buy a whole new wardrobe on a college student budget. Right after getting married and graduating in college I decided to do Weight Watchers and it worked well and I lost 50 lbs. Then I got pregnant with my first child. I gained a lot and even though I was able to lose some right after I then became a yo-yo.
I finally have gotten to a point that even though I don’t look like those models on magazines, I am happy with myself (most days anyway…) and I have decided to embrace my curves and my size. I continue to receive compliments on my outfits and the way I put colors together so I decided to start this blog to hopefully inspire others who might be in the same boat I am.