And so it begins...

188.8.  

That’s where I started at on April 1, 2012 and this is my journey.  It's my story of how I am taking back control of my life, my appearance, and in all reality my happiness.  I'm grabbing life by the scale and finally doing something about it.

I was always average size and around 15 I settled into being a size 6 sometime 8.  Very average for my 5’9” height and medium build.  I was a dancer as a child and I was a cheerleader in college, which helped keep me in shape.  After college I moved in to an apartment on my own, met a boy, and took an interest in working out because he liked it and what girl doesn’t want to impress their boyfriend.  I hated it.  I hated running, lifting weights, kick boxing.  All of the things I was doing to try to impress my now finance and make him like me even more.  When we got married I was a solid 6, in great shape, and felt really good about myself in a bikini.  A few months into our marriage I had to buy bigger jeans.  A 10.  And at my annual doctors appointment I learned that I now weighed 147lbs.  Hum… wasn’t I 137 just a few months earlier?  How did that happen?  But it didn’t motivate me to take the weight off and I became complacent in my new weight and size 10 jeans.  I continued to enjoy the honeymoon phase of marriage eating the same portions as my husband, making elaborate dinners to impress with hundreds of calories per serving, and still going to the gym.  I credit the gym with me not being bigger than I was becoming.

By July 0f 2006, 4 years into marriage, I was weighing in at 155, still feeling pretty good about myself even though I’d gained 20 pounds in 4 years, and we decided it was time to maybe think about having a baby.  By January I was pregnant with A-girl and while I walked some, I certainly didn’t exercise while pregnant and the weight piled on.  10, 20, 40, and finally 50 pounds.  25 to 30 pounds is normal for a pregnant woman to gain.  I doubled that number and with no pregnancy related complications.  I just ate.  A lot.  My little 7lb 12oz girl was born in September and the weight seemed pretty easy to get off.  A year later without trying at all I was down to 165.  10 pounds over my pre-pregnancy weight and 30 pounds more than I was when I got married.  But again, it didn’t really bother me.  I felt good and thought I looked good in clothes and even though a 10 was a bit snug sometimes I didn’t try to change that. 

In November of 2008 I got pregnant again with C-man.   I started 10 pounds bigger and ended close to the same weight, 205 pounds.  Like with my first pregnancy, the weight came off pretty easy at first and I got to 170 rather fast. I was 5 pounds away from where I’d started and that was ok with me.  170 pounds didn’t seem like that much at the time.

When C-man was one we had to see several doctors including a pediatric neurologist, a geneticist, a physical therapist, and a speech therapist because they felt like he might have muscular dystrophy.  Three weeks after this started my best friend died and I went into a funk.  I lived on cheese sticks, bananas, coffee, and wine for a good two months and I lost weight quickly because in essence I was starving myself.  And I found I liked this new found weight loss and the size of clothes I was fitting into.  No longer was I in a 12 but rather back into a 10.  I started to feel better about myself and I liked the way I looked even though I was still too heavy at 160 pounds. 

In the summer of 2009 we moved and the Hubby started traveling.  A lot.  He was home a total of 30 days in the first 6 months we lived in our new state and not only was I lonely but I was also lazy.  It was easy to go to Chick-Fil-A with the kids.  I would have a Sonic drink with A-girl for a treat and then eat two tacos, a big lunch and breakfast, and snack.  Doughnuts were fine.  And who needs just one when you can have two or three.  The weight piled on and at first I didn’t notice but then my pants began to feel tight, and when I went to the store to get new ones not only were the 10’s cutting off my circulation but the 12’s were too.  Size 14 here I come.

My entire life I feared getting big I had didn't have the best examples for healthy eating and proper weight management in my parents.  My mom was always bigger and she tried every fad diet on the market.  Medfast, a liquid diet that was popular in the 1980's, was the one she lost the most weight on but she gained it all back because she never made a lifestyle change but rather continued to yo-yo diet.  She would starve, she would binge, she would live on Diet Coke (sometimes 3-4 2 liters a day), and she didn’t like veggies so we didn’t really have them.  Coincidental, I don’t love veggies now and I fear that I’m going to pass that onto my kids.  I remember looking at her and thinking, “Dear God please don’t ever let me look like that or let myself go in the way she has.”  She was a size 14 at the time so when I put those 14’s on my body I sat and cried in the dressing room.  I’d sold out.  I was that person I had always feared I would become and I'd done it to myself. 

One would think a sob session in the dressing room in the winter of 2010 would be enough to kick a girl into high gear and make some changes.  But it wasn’t.  I hated my body.  I hated to look at myself and shop for clothes. Nothing looked good on a borderline plus size girl.  But I continued to eat.  And not only did I eat but I ate a lot, sometimes out eating my husband.  And the weight continued to pile on.  It wasn’t until I was packing for a three day trip to Washington DC that I realized something had to change.  I tried on everything in my closet and each outfit looked bad.  Too tight, too short, and the worst of all too muffin top inducing.  I looked in my bathroom mirror and decided this is it.  No more.  I have become someone I do not want to be and the time to change is now.  It was no one’s fault but my own and no one could fix it but me. 

I went on the trip and the day after we got back I went to my local Weight Watchers meeting desperate for help.  I didn’t know what to do but I did know that a change had to be made and it needed to be made fast.  The 14’s were getting snug and a 16 is a true plus size and I knew I wasn’t going there.  I stepped on the scale and the kind older lady handed me back my information.  She didn’t judge, she didn’t say anything about the number, but I knew she had to be thinking wow. 

188.8

I went to the bathroom and cried.  How?  Why?  What now?

And so here I am on this journey.  A journey to find me again and to be healthy.   I’ve started this journey with a BMI of 27.8.  Clearly in the overweight category of the scale.  In fact I’m 2 points away from obese.  A healthy weight for my height is 135-169.  My end goal is to be 140.  I’ve got a long way to go and a hard road ahead but it’s time.  If not for me, for my kids.  To show them the healthy lifestyle that I didn’t have growing up.