This is my story and I'm sticking to it!

One day last year I was sitting on my couch watching Biggest Loser, eating potato chips (because lets face it. There is something about that show that causes people to eat!) and I realized that I weighed the same as one of the contestants. I was pretty sure I did not look as out of shape and heavy as that lady though. After all, you know what they say. TV adds at least 120lbs to people. So I made my way upstairs to the bathroom and looked at myself in the mirror. At first I thought I looked fairly good. Then I took my rose colored glasses off and realized that I did look a bit puffy.

Later that night I went to bed a bit perplexed. How had I let this happen again? You see, I have fought the battle of the bulge my whole life. As a child I was chubby. In fact, at the age of 8 I remember my best friend at the time telling me that one of this older sisters had said I was fat. Up until that point I had no idea that I was fat. I was too busy being a kid and enjoying my days. I remember being so hurt that someone would say that I was fat. I truly believe that it was that day that I started having body image issues. I went from being the chubby kid to the chubby tween. I became more active as a teenager and maybe had a growth spurt, so I wasn’t as heavy as a teen. But I was still heavier than my friends. In my early twenties I was a horrible money manager and didn’t have funds to eat three meals a day. So I got really skinny then. But it was unhealthy and I felt like crap. Even though I was down to a size 6, I still thought of myself as fat. And when I looked in the mirror, I saw a fat girl.

Of course, when I stabilized my money issues and started eating again, I gained all the weight back. In my mid twenties I started dating the love of my life. He loved me just the way I was and didn’t care what size I was. This enabled me to get a better self image and become more confident in myself. We supported each other to get better jobs, to build a better life for ourselves. But in my mind, I was still battling the fat issue. As the years went by we steadily paid less attention to the health factor of our food and I watched as the size of my clothing slowly but surely kept climbing up and up and up, until I got to a size 22. It was right about that time that I had made a pact with a friend to go on a diet. We were going to start it on July 1^st. So I had decided I was going to eat the healthy choice meals for lunch, and drink slimfast and do all this stuff to lose weight.

On July 5^th, I became engaged. I was at my heaviest and this man still loved me enough to want to marry me. I always thought he had a bit of a crazy streak in him! The engagement gave me more motivation to lose weight. There was no way I wanted to be fat in my wedding pictures. It took a year, but I lost a lot of weight. I got down to a size 10. I was exercising, eating healthy and feeling really good. Not only because I was healthier and able to do more things, but because I had stuck to the diet and succeeded in losing the weight.

After getting married, I didn’t have the motivation to maintain my new physique. I slowly crept back up to a size 14. Then I got pregnant with our first child, which was wonderful. It had taken a year to conceive and the emotional toll that it took definitely contributed to my weight gain.

While being pregnant, I took the ‘eating for two’ to new heights. I think I may have eaten for three or four. I gained 60lbs with my first pregnancy. I had just started to lose some of it when we had a car accident that left me with a damaged knee. It took over a year for the Dr.’s to figure out what was wrong. So for that year I was unable to exercise. It hurt just to walk. I was in constant pain and it really got to me. I turned to my friend food for comfort. I gain a lot of weight. Found myself to be near size 20 again. I was finally able to have knee surgery and once healed I did start to get active again. I got back down to a size 18 when I conceived our second child. I didn’t gain any weight with this pregnancy. I had morning sickness throughout the pregnancy. Somehow, the boy still managed to be over 10lbs!

During maternity leave for my second child I did lose a lot of weight again. I still only got down to a size 16 though. After maternity leave I returned to my desk job. Now, I am going to say that I am SO thankful to still have my job. I mean, over the years, nearly everyone I have known that worked for the company has been downsized. When I started working for this company there were over 30 employees locally. Now there are 5. The department I worked in was relocated to another city. If I hadn’t taken an opportunity that was given to me, I would not have a job today. That being said, my job requires me to sit at a desk for 8 hours. Since we are now paperless, there really is no reason to not be sitting at a desk. Everything is computerized. So for someone that has some extra pounds to shed, it’s not the ideal job.

Fast forward to that one night last year that I was watching Biggest Loser. I decided that I needed to change something and I needed to do it now. So, that week, I bought some hair dye. I know what you are thinking. ‘What does hair dye have to do with anything?’ I’ll tell you. The first time I lost all that weight before getting married, I was platinum blonde. The hair dye I bought was platinum blonde. I decided that I needed to jump start my motivation by going blonde. I don’t know it made sense at the time! So I changed my hair, bought some workout DVD’s and set to action. I have managed to lose 35 lbs so far. The week after Thanksgiving, we went on a vacation and then with the holidays, I slacked majorly on dieting and exercise. But I managed to maintain and not gain any weight. Go me!

Now here we are to today. Today I am starting this blog. This is my journey. I will share with you what I am doing, what is motivating me and what excuses I am coming up with to not exercise or diet and why I exercised and dieted anyway. My goal is to be healthy. I don’t have to be a size 0 to be healthy. I just need to not feel limited in the things I can do because of my weight. And if you join me, well, maybe we can both fight this battle and win.