I used to think that celebrations should only be for special occasions and should ALWAYS include delicious food! Over the past few years, I have really had to work hard to change that mindset. My issues with food have given me the "excuse" to celebrate every little thing throughout the day and to use sugar to do so. Obviously, over time, this has had a very detrimental effect on my health. My low point was as I was waiting to undergo a non-stress test on my baby girl, I saw part of my chart the nurse had in her hand and by my weight they had written "morbidly obese". Those are two words no one really ever wants to see let alone see when you are about 36 weeks into your 5th pregnancy. I could, of course, make every excuse in the book as to how I got to that point but it really doesn't matter!! I was the largest I have ever been in my life and I hated myself for it. Seriously so much hate and self-loathing it was so difficult to keep sane and keep going. Thankfully I did, and I learned a whole lot about myself along the way.
At my heaviest, about to give birth to my 8 pound 5 ounce baby girl, I weighed 302.4 lbs. I vividly remember in high school at the end of my freshman year, weighing 194 lbs and freaking out that I was almost 200 pounds and how disgusting that was! I started watching what I was eating and made sure I was more active in my day and I got down to 174 I think. I still felt like I needed to lose more but I was proud of dropping that weight.
After my sophomore and junior years in high school, we had a really difficult year my senior year of high school and the weight started coming back on. I don't know how much I weighed at the time but I was a size 18 and had to buy new clothes when I moved from Colorado to Utah because none of my size 16 clothes fit anymore. I finally found a job in Tooele, started college, and was trying to carve out a social life and trying to date. I had no self esteem whatsoever after years of sexual, emotional, and physical abuse from my brother growing up so I was easy pickings for my ex husband.
I endured 4 years of literal hell with him before finally filing for divorce when I was 23 years old with 2 small children. My weight had skyrocketed during that time to 254 lbs.
Shortly after my divorce, I started working and started some pretty stupid eating habits that lead to me losing 38 pounds. That was awesome to get almost back down to the clothes I had after high school! I was soooo close and then got pregnant by a moronic ex boyfriend who said he couldn't have kids and I foolishly believed him. One of my sisters adopted that sweet baby girl because I for sure could not handle raising her on my own and she didn't deserve the lifestyle I was able to give my older two kids.
My weight just bounced up and down for years after that. I would get going really good on exercising and eating better and INVARIABLY something would happen that would just pull the rug right out from under me! It was so bad for my depression and anxiety that I have been suicidal many times over the years.
This past November, after Thanksgiving, I decided to finally take the bull by the horns and just handle my business! I started with Beachbody's Ultimate Reset. It was a 21 day eating program to flush all the crap out of your system and get you eating clean. I did FANTASTIC!!! I only had one cheat meal the entire 21 days and that was because we had a work Christmas party for my husband's new job. I thought this was it! I was finally going to kick these demons in my head!! PSYCH! As soon as the program was over I used every excuse known to mankind to eat crap! At first it was just one little treat in the middle of the day which I would beat myself up emotionally for the rest of the day. Then it progressed to more and more sweets as we really got close to Christmas. Then came New Year's Eve and then my birthday and the excuses were easier and easier to come by.
Now, tomorrow, I am starting over again. I am not making any promises that this is going to drastically change my life. What I am promising myself, is that I will follow this program to the "T" and there is nothing that is more important than my health!
