{"id":38432,"date":"2015-02-10T08:50:32","date_gmt":"2015-02-10T16:50:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/?p=38432"},"modified":"2015-02-02T20:13:36","modified_gmt":"2015-02-03T04:13:36","slug":"tattoos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/?p=38432","title":{"rendered":"Tattoos"},"content":{"rendered":"

I have five tattoos. I love them. They all mean something to me and they all tell a story of that time in my life. The first one I got when I was 18–like a week legal! I was young, a little stupid and didn’t do my research. It’s a small ankh<\/a> on my right ankle. The work isn’t great and someday I need to get it redone. The second one is a labrys <\/a>on my left arm, symbolizing strength,\u00a0independence\u00a0and feminism.<\/p>\n

\"labrys\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The third is an Egyptian goddess<\/a>, symbolizing rebirth, fertility and femininity.<\/p>\n

\"goddess\"<\/a>
\n\"L_M-0192\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The fourth is the Eye of Horus<\/a>, an Egyptian symbol for protection. This one is pretty special to me–I got it in London (Notting Hill!) and my cousin Anna has an identical one on her ankle, too.<\/p>\n

\"tat\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Lastly, my favorite tattoo, is on my back. It’s a purple\u00a0lotus flower<\/a> with a symbol above it. Not only is the work gorgeous, but it also has happy memories for me, too. I got the tattoo on my trip to San Francisco with my cousin Anna. We stopped at a parlor on Haight\u00a0<\/a>–I wish I could remember where now! The last tattoo I got when I was 22 years old and I haven’t gotten another one since.<\/p>\n

\"L_M-0102\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I think part of the reason I have tattoos has to do with where I grew up. The Pacific Northwest is very “crunchy”. I grew up surrounded by people who had tattoos, piercings, dreadlocks, crazy hair, pretty much every stereotype you can imagine about Seattle and Portland. That was the norm.<\/p>\n

But giving it some genuine thought and analyzing the “why,” I think there is another reason for my tattoos. I think that when I gained my weight and I was really unhappy with my body, I wanted to do\u00a0something<\/em> to make it be beautiful in my eyes. I didn’t like my body, I couldn’t lose weight, I felt self-conscious and unhappy. Adorning myself with art work of my choosing seemed to change that.<\/p>\n

I’ve changed a lot since I lost 110 pounds. I learned to love my body (most of the time). Becoming a fit, healthy, active person not only changed my body for the better, but it changed my brain, too. I started to look at my body in a positive way because I was able to do things I could never do before. Having the ability to swim two miles without stopping to rest was mind blowing to me! I was so proud of my accomplishments!<\/p>\n

The weight training program I’ve been doing has been transforming my body even more and it’s given me the self-confidence I was lacking. I LOVE seeing definition in my arms and recognizing my own strength. And of course, working on getting awesome muscles just make my tattoos look even better. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

Do I regret the tattoos now that I’ve changed? Not at all. I think it was the self-expression I needed to do at a certain time in my life. I’m sure I will get more someday, and definitely clean up the ones I have now when they are faded. I look back at that time in my life and instead of thinking about how I disliked my body, I remember the story that each tattoo tells. London, San Francisco, feminism, strength, whatever it represented then, it still represents now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have five tattoos. I love them. They all mean something to me and they all tell a story of that time in my life. The first one I got when I was 18–like a week legal! I was young, a little stupid and didn’t do my research. It’s a small ankh on my right […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"yes","footnotes":""},"categories":[418,44,154,179,2778,2514,261,298],"tags":[8776,8591,8662,1565,3335,2459,8731,8301,8300,8758,8299],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38432"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=38432"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38432\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45685,"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38432\/revisions\/45685"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=38432"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=38432"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=38432"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}