2/26 Friday QOTD: We are all on the same journey to good health and weight loss. When did the journey start for you? Was weight something you always struggled with or has it crept up on you over the years?
Well, it's a very long story. Of course everyone reads only what they want to read - if it's too much, feel free to skip to the end for my summarizing points!
I had a bit of a potbelly as a child, but looking at pictures, I did not really start to get obviously overweight until 4th or 5th grade. My mom, of course had always been "watching her weight" or "trying to get in shape" or "eating healthier." So that was always on my radar, but during late elementary school,a couple of other things were going on, but I'm not sure how much dirty laundry anyone wants aired here. The first thing is that I think that I was plumping up before puberty/ for a growth spurt. The other thing, though, is that my parents' marriage was in trouble and I knew that my father was paying inappropriate attention to other women, but I didn't know what my mom knew or how to act or what to say, so I didn't say anything about the things I knew. And when you keep a secret, it's going to fester and spill out in other areas. So I ate more and had more anxiety and emotional vacillations. My parents were concerned and got me all kinds of evaluations, but looking back now, I dont' think the problem was with me - I was just a barometer.
My parents separated and coincidentally, I slimmed down a lot in junior high and stayed small through high school, but was always dissatisfied with my body anyhow. Always on a diet, often eating as little as I could get away with. People were sometimes concerned that I wasn't eating enough. Sometimes eating a lot of chocolate ice cream with sprinkles. Mostly I stayed within the same 10 pound range for those years, though.
College - of course, I gained the Freshman 15, but.....it might have been more like the Freshman 30. DH and I were "together" again by then (we had dated in high school in Massachusetts, but then his parents moved AND he went away to college so it became problematic), but he was in school in Virginia, while I went to school in Minnesota. It was the early days of email, which is why it worked, I think. I lost some of my freshman weight over that first summer, through eating right and working out but then gained quite a bit over the next two years, up to about 186, which still seems to be my "scream weight." I draw the line and get serious about losing when I get to that point. I am a little over 5'5" and that is about where I cross into the "Obese" BMI, not that I knew that at the time.
Senior year, in preparation for our wedding, I decided to try Deal-a-meal, which I'd found on sale at Kmart.
This was back when there were the physical cards to move, not the "food mover" with the little switches to flip. And I loved it. I loved the structure of it and the fact that I KNEW without a doubt what I still needed to eat that day. It was a visual exchange system, so it stayed pretty balanced as well, and the cards said exactly what they were worth in food right on them. Loved it, even if it was dorky. My grandmother called it "Dial-a-Meal"
I still crack up about that one. DH decided to join me in losing - he did a lot of the cooking then and did a great job, and for our wedding, we were both at our lowest adult weights. I was around 126.
Of course after an event like that, you get more comfortable, not to mention that first year of marriage. And the weight was creeping back on both of us little by little. I remember I settled in the low 140's for a couple of years. Then, I got pregnant and everything changed again. I knew it should not be a free for all, but I had spent the first 3 months feeling nauseated and when that lifted and the hunger of the 2nd trimester came, it really was a free for all. I was so excited to eat and hadn't gained anything p to that point, so I just went off the deep end, I think. I wish my doctor would have said something to me about it earlier. Once I gained 10 pounds in 2 weeks.
Crazy times. I figured I'd lost weight before, I could do it again after the baby was born. It would be funny if it weren't so sad!
By the time my first son was born, I had gained....80 pounds.
I was 220 when I went into the hospital. I was 205 when I came home, and he was a 9 pound baby. I did lose some over the next few years, but not a lot. Eventually I decided that if we were going to have a second child, I'd better lose before I started gaining again for the sake of my knees if nothing else. I was carrying my toddler down some stairs and thought "oh, this is too hard." I started going to Weight Watchers. My Deal-a-Meal cards were getting pretty ratty and there were no new ones to be had, plus it seemed like if DH wasn't in on it, it might be better to try something different. I forget what they were calling it but it was after they'd gone from exchanges to points. It was the program right after the 1-2-3 points. I was not a huge fan of the meetings (they can be cheesy!), but did manage to lose to 155 before getting pregnant with DS2.
I knew better than for it to be a free for all this time, so while I didn't count points during pregnancy, I didn't eat with complete abandon, anyhow, and managed to finish the pregnancy gaining a reasonable amount of weight. Two months after he was born, though, my wonderful grandmother suddenly took a turn for the worse and we had to race to Iowa to say goodbye before breast cancer took her from us. I was in the midst of post-partum mood swings still and that threw me into full blown depression. Of course part of depression is that you don't want help and can't envision things changing. I held on by the skin of my teeth and kept the house running somehow, with a preschooler, a new baby and a huge pile of grief. but boy, did I eat a lot for comfort. I rejoined weight watchers a few times as well, but had a really hard time sticking with it.
Then there was a period of time in there as well when my MIL was very ill with Ovarian cancer. Well, she was ill for 5 years, actually, but she died when DS2 was barely 3 years old, so it was a rough couple of years there, too.
I was still depressed. And heavier than I was when I had been pregnant the second time, too. Which was also depressing. Finally, finally, I realized when I was reading a book about anxiety and depression in children (my very sensitive older son was struggling a lot with these losses as well) I realized that if I were my own child and had the symptoms from that list that I had, I would definitely seek help. Before I had spent a lot of time thinking I should be strong enough to dig myself out on my own. I went to therapy and group therapy, which really focused on doing one "experiment" per week, returning the next week to report on how it went and then choosing another experiment. My main goal was to dig out without meds, if I could, so when the leader/therapist said that exercise could be as effective as antidepressants when done regularly and for a certain amount of time, I adopted that experiment. I also started working backstage in a play again that spring, the first time I'd done that in years, and at last the gloom began to lift.
I really did look at working out as "my medicine" and thought, "Well, you wouldn't skip taking your prozac if you were on it, you can't skip your planned workout." I walked on the treadmill to start, but decided that I kind of really hate fast walking on the treadmill....a LOT. So I looked online to find a start-to-run program. Around this time, we had just gotten back from our first trip to WDW and I had been spending time on the DIS. I had been doing a running program that was just OK when I came across the C25K thread on the DISboards. I switched to C25K and started making some friends on that thread, did my first 5K in May, started losing some weight, started dreaming about the 2009 half marathon, got talked into the inaugural Tower of Terror 13K and...I wish I could say "the rest is history!" but as much as it helped my mood, my weight was still a constant struggle. I still had my etools from the last time I'd tried WW and would log for a while and then not, and then I'd try again. I couldn't really get it together, but I continued to run.
I registered for my "Dream Race," the 2009 WDW Half Marathon in January of 2008. I had thought that some friends would be joining me, but one by one, each of them ended up unregistered and unable to attend. Fortunately, I also joined Team O'hana that January and so was still very much in a culture of people planning to attend 2009 Marathon Weekend. So I trained. And I lost weight and I gained weight and I struggled and struggled with food, and sometimes I just gave up and ate a lot of chocolate ice cream, but by the end of the summer, I thought I'd better get serious about this if I'm going to be able to finish the half marathon. So I was tracking my food and I was losing well and I was following my training plan when out of the blue - BAM - I fell down on a walk with my dog in the neighborhood (OK, I think I was pushed by the 90lb goldendoodle neighbor dog, but I'm not pointing fingers) and suddenly my thoughts were very foggy. I couldn't remember numbers or things I was supposed to do. Tracking food on WW became just more than I could do. And I had to stop running for a month because the impact of running made my thinking cloudier. I lost the month of November to a lot of sitting around in a fog, eating and playing Webkinz.
December arrived and I was better, though still not 100%. I tentatively tried running, and felt that it did not make my continuing cognitive problems any worse, so, I did my best to resume training for the half marathon that was then a little over a month away, in spite of being at one of my heaviest weights. I trained to run it and said that if I could just get under 3 hours, I would be happy.
I traveled on my own to Orlando and met my teammates and WISH friends for the first time. I was nervous about every bit of that trip, but I did it. It was not easy, but I finished, too with a chip time of: 2:59:34! I was flying home early the next day, but that night, on my way back to my room at the Boardwalk (I'd been to Downtown Disney and gotten off the bus at the Swan...or was it the Dolphin), I decided to stop in at Jellyrolls. I was still wearing my WISH visor, like a dork, but my hair was a disaster if I took it off. Turns out, that had was the key to a great evening and some new WISH friends Liz and Bryan. Liz had lost a whole bunch of weight and Bryan as well. Bryan was even refusing the free popcorn at Jellyrolls because he didn't want to go off his diet. Well, I thought that takes some willpower, but if he can be that good at Disney World after running a half marathon, and if I can finish a half marathon against all the things in my way - my weight, my loss of training, my head injury - if those things didn't stop me from getting what I wanted, maybe I can get myself together in the food department, too.
And that brings us up to the start of my losing 56 pounds last year with the Biggest Loser Challenge and Weight Watchers. It's been quite a year! There have been things that have been been different about "this time" all along, but the biggest changes are:
1. Running is my prozac, resistance training is my physical therapy - non-optional and I am looking for those benefits, not just how many calories I can burn.
2. I did finally realize and admit that there are some foods that I feel powerless over and I need to turn that over to a higher power, and also keep them out of easy reach/don't even start with them as much as possible.
3. I need to have structure. And it needs to be long term. I need to track what I'm eating and know what I need to eat in a day so I don't make a regular habit of eating too much or too little (which is what I get if I "try to eat less.) It is as true in maintenance as it was in losing, so I'll be doing this for the long haul.
4. Reading something about health/weight loss/fitness/nutrition every day, even in maintenance is really important to my continuing to pay attention to what I'm doing.
5. I did lost most of my weight online and without meetings. The thing this has helped me realize consciously is: My program is not something that is forcing rules on me - if I "cheat" on the program, it doesn't care - it is a tool that can help me get what I want IF I use it.
6. I can run a half marathon a whole heck of a lot faster and easier when I'm 55 pounds lighter!
7. If at first (or second or third...) you don't succeed, never give up hope. Every past attempt at losing was a part of the overall process of getting to where I am today.
8. It's so important to have people to share the journey with. They don't have to be your best friend or family members or even people you know in real life, but it's important to have those people, nevertheless. Thank YOU for sharing the journey.
2004, probably the highest weight I have a picture of myself, and 2 weeks ago geting my 5K PR (sorry I'm wearing a jacket! - it's the best recent picture I've got):
Today I picked out apple, apple and cinnamon, some sort of red berry scent (the info is in mandarin and I'm not up on all my berry names), and vanilla icecream. Anyone have any favourite candle scents?
I am wondering if when I am out for my run today if I could just run slower for part of it! 
) yesterday. We are having amazing weather -- it was 52 when I landed in Spokane yesterday. You can't beat that for February weather! 
Plus tomorrow is my 5AM boot camp class. ..watching the USA/Canada hockey game right now. So exciting (but I have to confess, I am nostalgic for when the players used to be college athletes rather than NHL professionals..). I'll be switching back and forth from the hockey game to the Siena College basketball game starting at 4PM...great sports weekend!!!
Then we did a road trip to DL for our honeymoon. And then we waited to go back again until DL's 50th. Our oldest DD was 3.5 and our youngest was 3months. It ended up being a big family trip (17 of us in all ended up there). It was even better with kids than it was without and we've done a few more trips with the girls to both DL, WDW and 2 cruises as well. There's a magic to Disney that we all get, and DH & I love seeing that magic with our girls.
