Well I have hit a limit…again. I have hit this limit many times, which is why I find it all so discouraging. I am the heaviest I have ever been (exactly 40 lbs heavier than I was on my wedding day). Ray took a picture of me on Halloween carving a pumpkin and it was officially the worst picture I have ever seen. One of those pictures that you look at and immediately blurt out loud “is that really me?? There is no way….”. On top of seeing the picture I also looked in the mirror yesterday and saw stretch marks. Yes I am fully aware that this blog is public but this is me putting it all out there in the hopes that it might help to hold me accountable for getting in shape.
As a child I was always skinny. I was underweight and had to take supplements to make sure I was getting the right nutrition. This was not by choice, I just simply wasn’t a big eater. Food was always something I ate because I had to, not because I wanted to. I’m not totally sure when that all changed. I do remember it was around the time I turned 20 that my metabolism started to slow down and I started outgrowing my clothes. It was also at this age that I went away to Wales to go to school for a year and had no idea how to cook. I guess it was at that time that I started gaining weight.
By the time I was 22 I was engaged to be married. I wanted to lose the extra weight I had gained since I was 20 in time for the wedding. Maybe it was because i was still so young but I didn’t seem to have any trouble doing it. Ray was a good cook and taught me a lot so I changed what I ate.
After I got married I started gaining more weight again. Ray and I started eating out a lot more. We were on our own, had our own home, had a dual income, essentially we were free to do whatever we wanted. This is when I started doing Weight Watchers. I would lose 10 lbs, gain 10 lbs, lose 10 lbs, gain 10 lbs. Then I got pregnant, had a baby and a little bit of the weight stayed on…you know, the typical excuse for gaining weight. Then I had a second baby and only gained 12 lbs throughout the pregnancy because I had gestational diabetes and watched every single thing I ate. Within days of giving birth I had lost all 12 lbs, was back in my pre-pregnancy clothes and feeling great. My goal was to lose the extra weight from the first pregnancy. I started Weight Watchers again and lost almost all the weight I wanted to. I got so close to goal and just sabotaged myself. I told myself I was tired of going to Weight Watchers, I was tired of spending the money, I didn’t want to go to the meetings because it was the same old, same old….so I quit. It didn’t take long for me to put all the weight back on again. The weight has been there ever since, it has been over a year now.
So here I am today, with the same goal, to lose 40 lbs. I find it depressing. Heart disease, high cholesterol, diabetes and cancer all run in my family. Both of my grandfathers died of heart attacks around the age of 40. I have had both high cholesterol and diabetes (gestational) in the past, even though I was young and thin at the time so I am at very high risk being overweight.
Today is the first day. I will not stop until I reach my 40 lb goal. To be honest I’m not sure how I’m going to do it, or why I think that this time around will be different. I hope that by blogging this I can gain some support.
