Step One

I have struggled with my weight my entire adult life. From the age of 13 and onward - that's more than 20 years. I'm tired and unhappy about it. My outside doesn't match my inside. I love who I am and what I've accomplished in my life. Why can't I get a handle on this? I've been toying with this idea of blogging about my weight for awhile. One of my friends from Ohio State took the leap and started her own blog about her weight loss journey. That was the push I needed. That and the fact that I'm tired of losing weight, gaining it back, but gaining back more than I had lost. It ends today.

How did it start? I'm not entirely sure. I've always been tall and when I gain weight I gain it all over. I'm not faulting my parents for what I ate growing up. A lot of it was pretty standard fare - fishsticks and mac & cheese, meatloaf, chicken pot pie. Everything in moderation though. And I didn't gain the bulk of my weight until I was out of my parents' house. This is on me, not them. What I didn't get though was an appreciation for different foods. My fruit and vegetable palate is pretty limited and there are more things I don't like than I do.

So while in high school I was a little overweight, it wasn't incredibly noticeable. Most of my late teens and early 20s I was a size 14. I wasn't thrilled about it. I stayed pretty much the same size throughout college and grad school, gaining and losing the same 10 pounds. The bulk of the weight has crept on the last 10 years. It only got worse every time I moved. When I would start a new job I would slack off on the exercise and not make the best food choices. I'd average a gain of 15-20 pounds every time I moved. I've lived in 4 states in the last 5 years alone. Y'all can do the math.

The really hard part is that I love food. And unfortunately a lot of what I love is not necessarily what's good for you. On the flip side though, the things I dislike about being overweight are starting to outweigh my love of food. I hate how I look in pictures and avoid having my picture taken at all costs. I love clothes and fashion and while there are some great plus size options out there, I'd love to be able to shop in the regular sizes. There's just better variety and more options, especially in the high end stores. I have high cholesterol. That I believe is genetic. I have high blood pressure too. That is not genetic. I've always had low blood pressure until recently. I'm not keen about being on blood pressure meds and would love to get off them. To get off them I need to lose weight and exercise more. I can do that. I just need to commit to doing that. I am committing to doing that. I work full time and I'm also in school. It's very easy to find a reason to not make good choices and to skip 30 minutes or so on the exercise bike. I need to make it just as easy to say "yes" to those things as I do to saying "no".

It took me 10 years to get to this point. I know losing the weight is not going to happen overnight or in 1-2 months. I've tried slim-fast, weight watchers, jenny craig, doing it on my own. This time around I'm sticking with Weight Watchers. I know it works. I've seen how it works for people I know. I'm a monthly pass member which means I get everything. Online support, meetings, etc. I love my WW meetings. I've found a location and time that fits my schedule. More importantly, I big puffy heart Cassie, the leader of the meetings I've attended. She's lost 100 pounds. Twice. She did it once, then again after she had twins. She's energetic, fun, enthusiastic, and realistic. When I eventually leave Texas someday, I will miss going to that meeting on Saturday mornings. WW also makes it easy. All the online support for tracking, the moble apps..the mobile apps! The newest is a scanner app that lets you scan barcodes and get the points values. It links to your account so you can then automatically track the food if you're going to eat it then. Seriously, short of having a personal assistant to do all of this for you, it doesn't get much easier than this.

So what is my goal? WW says to shoot for a loss of .5 - 2.0 pounds per week. My goal is to lose 100 pounds. Yes, I'm putting it out there for everyone to see. I'm going to post what I eat and the results of my weigh-ins, including my actual weight. What's the point of doing this and using this as motivation if I'm not going to be brutally honest with myself and with you.

My scale is pretty close to the scale at WW so I weighed myself this morning. 260 on the nose. Ugh. So not happy with that. There are bagels this morning to celebrate something at work. I brought oatmeal. I'm going to stick to my oatmeal.

Today's plans:

Early morning - coffee with sugar and half and half. I'm trying to wean myself off of so much sugar. But I rely on the coffee in the morning, so I'll take the 3 point hit for my cup of coffee for now. I also have oatmeal which I am going to have in a few minutes. I have light yogurt and some freeze dried apples and pears for snacking. For lunch today I'm relying on a special k protein shake and a granola bar. For dinner I have left over chicken tikka with a little bit of basmati rice and a salad with chickpeas, lettuce, and light Caesar dressing. I'll have a few points left over for some light microwave popcorn and a glass of wine while I watch Top Chef. I also plan on riding the exercise bike for at least 30 minutes tonight. That's the plan, let's see how it goes.