August 12, 2011
Katie
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I’m happy, I really am. God has given me more in my life than ever dreamed I would have by this point. I’m married to my most wonderful husband who is always so supportive of everything I do. I have a beautiful one year old daughter who I love more than I ever thought possible. I have fulfilling job helping people and where I really matter and make a difference. The only real thing in my life that I can honestly say I’m completely unhappy about is my weight. I’ve always be at least slightly overweight. As I a child, I grew up with an unhealthy relationship to food and was very obese. The summer before I started high school I joined Jenny Craig and proceeded to lose about 50 pounds and was, for the first time in my life, in my healthy weight range. Through high school and college I was able to maintain a somewhat healthy weight, fluctuating roughly twenty pounds in either direction. Then I got married.
I guess you can say I let myself go. I gained about forty pounds within a year of getting married. I will say I had a back injury that had me pretty much flat on my back for two months straight in that year but I was never able to lose the weight gained from that. I went on weight watchers a few months before our one year anniversary and lost twenty pounds only to find out I was pregnant on July 4, 2009.
So you’re probably thinking, “Ah, that is how she found herself almost 100 pounds overweight.” Good guess, but no. In fact, because I had severe nausea through my whole pregnancy I gained maybe 20 pounds my whole pregnancy. I was back down to my pre-pregnancy weight by the time my daughter was two weeks old. It should have been easy peasy to just continue where I left of before I got pregnant.
Unfortunately, my body refused to cooperate. After a major struggle to breastfeed my daughter and giving up after a month I’m not exactly sure what happened. Maybe it was depression from not being able to breastfeed. Maybe hormones messed up my metabolism. Whatever happened, I gained another 40 pounds. And I’ve been very unhappy and uncomfortable with that. I look in the mirror and I see a different person than I know to be. One thing I don’t struggle with is my self image. It’s kind of the opposite. I want to look like how I feel inside. I look in the mirror and its all wrong. It’s not who I am. I want to look like me again.
So I joined Weight watchers again. That was this past December. That was a major fail. I did lose about ten pounds but it took forever. Like four months. Previously, I was able to lose ten pounds in a month. I think part of it was post pregnancy issues and imbalance. But part of it was I wasn’t working the plan fully. I guestimated and nibbled here and there. I wasn’t fully in the game. And I had my lack of progress to show for it. So I stopped for a few months but still ate healthfully (for the most part…) and only gained about five pounds back.
Finally, about a week ago, I saw some recent pictures of myself and decided enough was enough. No more playing around; no more half on plan, half eating whatever I want. I’m going back to the real me now and forever. I rejoined Weight Watchers on August 3rd and have a determination like never before. My goal is to be within my healthy weight range, whatever that may be, by the time I’m thirty. I turn thirty on February 10, 2013. I don’t think that is unrealistic. In fact I’ve already lost 5 pounds. Go me! Five pounds gone forever, never to be seen again. “Let your eyes look directly forward, and your gaze be straight before you.” Proverbs 4:25
