I've got my own demons, I don't need yours

This needs to be said.
Not that many years ago, I was a size 2. I had 3 kids under the age of 10 that I was raising practically on my own due to my husband's travel schedule. I worked at a gym and taught 2 classes a day. Three days a week I left the gym and went to a martial arts class, where I eventually earned a Brown Belt.
I was thin. I was pointed to as the ideal body type to strive for at the gym I worked at. What people didn't know.... I had no energy. I had to co-teach my classes because I couldn't get through them. Going up the stairs got me winded and left my heart racing to the point where my Dr. insisted I get an EKG to check my heart. My hips stuck out. My stomach was flat, but you could also count my ribs. My collar bone protruded, and my cheeks were sunken. I had dark circles under my eyes. I couldn't left the weights in the Body Pump class that I was teaching. I was too busy keeping up the facade to take care of myself.
I burnt out.

I stopped everything and gain 50lbs. I gained it 5lbs at a time, so I didn't see it so much at first. Then one day I realized I was 150lbs, and unhappy.

It started slow. First I started ballroom dancing. Then running. Then I went to Zumba and fell in love with that. Before long I was asked to develop and teach a weight class. I started that in Jan. Along the way, I found myself. I found a healthier version of that girl I was 7yrs ago.  I didn't lose a lot of weight, because i was building the muscle my body so desperately wanted and needed. I did lose though. I went from a size 14 to an 8. If I never lose another dress size I will be happy.

I carry my class. Me! There's no instructor beside me to to "take the hard songs".

I'm a runner. For the first time in my life I can say that. I can scream it from the mountain tops. I AM A RUNNER. And it doesn't matter that it takes me 3 and a half hours to finish a half marathon, I still crossed the same finish line that the first place runner crossed. It was my legs that carried me the distance. It was my lungs that breathed in oxygen. It was my heart that pumped the blood through my body.
A body that is not perfect, but that is mine and I am proud of.

So, if my muffin has a little more top than you would like...well, first you are delusional about what a real woman looks like. Second, you can kiss my fat ass. If that offends you, well, saying things like "With all the running she says she does, she should be invisible by now", offends me.