Day 1: January 17, 2011

Things nobody told me growing up:
1) one cookie/brownie/cake is never just one.
2) fruit is not an add-on to a meal. It's not optional.
3) The weight you gain when you're 14, 18, 22 may go on easy, but it doesn't come off easy at 31.

I am beginning today with what I hope will be my new body.

I am not a person who is unhappy necessarily with myself. I am athletic and energetic and vibrant. I do the things I want to do and I enjoy my life. Sure there are body image issues (who doesn't have 'em?) but I'm married and love my children and have great friends.

But I'm fat.

Yes, I said it. That dreaded "f" word. The word that even shows like 'Heavy' and "Biggest Loser" seem to avoid. Excess weight, high BMI, even obese, but never fat. For example, I watched the premiere of "Heavy" last night and was just amazed at how this man could barely even walk to his car without almost dying, wheezing like a freight train just from walking around the ranch they have, but no one told him he was fat. They all stressed that he needed to lose weight, but come on! Everyone is thinking it, even the guy himself. We don't tiptoe around drug addicts and say they are seriously judgement-challenged.

Honestly I am tired of the news all the time, stressing all these new studies about scientists and how they discovered this and that, all related to why and how people gain weight. I can tell you when I gained my weight, and how. I went to college. Each meal, I had a regular soda, and I drank them in my room too. After every meal, I ate a bowl of ice cream. Just 1 a day, but that's a few hundred calories every week that added up to a few pounds a month. I wasn't small ti begin with, but fit for sure. I finished college above 200 lbs by a bit.

Then my first year of marriage and my first year of teaching, where we ate crap all the time and never had time or energy to work out. By the time I got pregnant with my daughter, I was about 220 lbs. With my son, I was 240.

And there I've hovered for 3 years. 248 lbs today. 248

248
What a disgusting number. I weigh more than professional football players.

So, it's going to change, starting today.

I am starting slow with some basic goals. I know that this road will be long, and hard, and difficult. I also know that all the other times I've set out to do it, I was derailed because I had a lack of results. So, I am thinking that my results must be different. I am setting non-weight related goals so I can say I accomplished *something.*

3 goals for January/Feb:
1) Begin the Couch-to-5k program (every other day run/walk combo.)
2) Eat a fruit or veggie with every single meal
3) Stay under allotted Weight Watchers Points each week.


Nobody told me...to do this. Because nobody wants to tell me I'm fat. But I know what the truth is, and I aim to change it.