My Story

I want to lose weight. Actually no, scratch that, I NEED to lose weight. I am at a point I never ever thought I would get to but here I am and here's how I am going to deal with it.

But first, I will start with a bit of my story. A story of my weight but also of my confidence.

I'm 24 years old. I've struggled with my weight on and off since I was about 12. So, for about half of my life. I've been up and down and up and down and back up again. But then again, hey that's a lot of people's story. Isn't it?

When I was a kid I was a "normal" size. I loved junk like every kid and my eyes were always bigger than my stomach but I played and ran around outside enough that it wasn't really an issue. Plus I didn't always eat junk. My parents gave us pretty good balanced meals and we rarely ate out so I was alright.

Enter puberty. I ballooned. I was somewhere near the tune of 170 pounds by the time I was 14. This was terrifying at that age. I needed a solution. I had no confidence in myself and thought I was ugly as sin. Then that January when I turned 15 I started Weight Watchers and that's what I needed, guidelines. I did it with my mom and followed it pretty well (albeit illegally...we didn't pay for it) and the pounds melted off. By summer I was 125 pounds. I looked much better but something was still missing: confidence. I still thought I was ugly and that boys didn't like me. And when I lost the weight I stopped dieting. I gained 25 pounds back in about year and a half. I still looked ok but once I discovered that I dieted again and was back down in the 130s.

I was good for the next year or so. I still had a lot of weight watchers habits. Always drank skim milk. Usually measured my food yadda yadda yadda.

I started gaining weight again when I got my license and went out a lot with my friends. We always went out to eat so it only made sense I would gain. THEN I started university and ballooned. By the end of the year I could no longer fit into any of my jeans and was always wearing sweatpants. Everyone else was too but still EW. I also still had no confidence in myself, it was bad.

I did the ol' WW thing again that summer and got down to a good size again. Not sure what my weight was anywhere throughout that because after my initial weight loss at 15 I was always lax with the scale as if I was afraid of what it would say.

And so I gained again when I went back to university in the fall and dieted again the following fall, gradually losing weight again. Over the course of the next couple years I made it to a decent size and weight (again not sure what) but I was ok with it and by 2007 something magical happened. I had confidence in my attractiveness and suddenly the men came in droves. I was happy with my size even though I was nowhere near as thin as I was as a teen but it finally didn't matter.

And so I relaxed. Too much over time. I completely lost all my good habits and gained a bunch of bad ones. I didn't exercise either. I started to gain and at first I was so blissful I didn't notice.

Then I saw some pictures of me last summer. That was a holy shit moment. I was huge! I didn't look at all like I thought I looked in my head. I tried to eat well for a millisecond and lost a few pounds and then just drifted back into bad habits.

I've tried over the last year to follow a plan. Portion size, sparkpeople etc. I couldn't stick to any. I think I was in denial a little bit. I continued to gain and as I did I lost more and more confidence.

Now I hate having my picture taken (I never did before...I liked it even), hate getting dressed in the morning because nothing feels or looks good ( and I love my clothes), don't bother much with my hair, don't really care about my makeup, look in the mirror as little as possible, think that people are judging me and laughing (especially men). And the funny part is, I have a boyfriend. A great one. Who likes me for who I am. For years I was looking for that thinking it would make all my other problems disappear. Weird how that works, eh?

So when the opportunity to do a office healthy eating program came about I jumped at it. I started just this past Monday and I am motivated like Hell. I finally weighed myself for the first time in 3 years and it wasn't pretty (215 pounds!). I know my waist size (42") and my body fat percentage (44%). If that all wasn't motivation to get my ass in gear I don't know what is!!!

I realize now one of my biggest mistakes, aside from eating too much junk and not exercising, is not weighing myself regularly. Denial is a powerful thing. You need to keep that shit in check! I am going to get myself a good scale when I can (I now use the one at the office) and weigh myself every week. I have nothing to be afraid of now! I have seen the worst! If I stay on track it can only get better from here.

It's a long road but I can do it!

So here are a few goals before I end this epic post:

-Lose 55 pounds to get to 160 and go from there

-Get down to a healthy waist size. Something like 33" (or less)

- Get my body fat percentage down to a healthy amount like 30% or less.

These are all achievable and I am going to achieve them!