Pregancy+ Out of Contol Eating=Disaster!

Prior to becoming pregnant, I was able to maintain a fairly normal weight for almost two years, the longest amount of time I'd ever gone in adulthood without gaining incredible amounts of weight. Once pregnant, it was like a green light for "go" went off in my head, and I headed for the trough! I lied to myself, thinking that all the food I was inhaling was for the health and welfare of my growing babies. Sure, healthy food was on the menu, followed by drawers of junk food, greasy gobs of goodness and full of fat fabulous food!

It was heaven for me to not only stop being careful with food, but to even be encouraged to eat! On top of the piles of potatoes I was putting away, I somehow came to the conclusion that I should wash all that food down with not only whole milk, but something called whole milk plus,(basically half and half). At three to four gallons a week, along with all the food I shoveled in, the pounds added very quickly. In the first five months of marriage I had put on about thirty pounds and gained another one-hundred with the babies. This is the point in my story when, no matter who I share this story with, EVERYONE tries to make me feel better by saying, "Well sure, but you had twins!" That might make sense, but the total baby weight for both kids was just a wink over 9 pounds. My daughter Keano weighing 6lbs and her sister Charlee topping out at a bit over 3lbs.

Four months after giving birth, I had lost enough to fit into my size 22-24s, at 240 pounds; not the highest I'd ever climbed, but certainly up there.
So another day, another diet; Weight Watchers this time, but I really made little progress this time around and I found it almost impossible to gear up for another weigh down. After all, I reasoned, I was now a happily married, stay home mommy; so what was my motivation? I could see a bit of fear in Chuck's eyes, as he would look at the wedding picture on the wall, seeing his beautiful and trim bride, who less than a year and a half later, stood before him almost ninety pounds heavier! Eating became, as usual, my emotional crutch. I ate when I was happy, sad, mad, glad, any reason was reason enough. I remember hitting a low point when I came up with the brilliant idea that while being the good wifey, I'd bake brownies, sweet rolls, chocolate cakes, a multitude of awesome and baked wonders for Chuck but instead of making just one pan of delights, I'd bake two! Chuck was so impressed that I could make such incredibly tempting delights and yet, with the will power of Wonder Woman, I wouldn't touch a morsel! Little did he know, it was one pan for him, one pan for me; I would devour my share all by myself when he went to bed, or sometimes I'd eat the whole thing before he even got home!

Dark, Heavy Days Ahead

Last I left off, I was almost 240 pounds and graduating from high school. I'll never forget the day our tiny class of eighteen met with the junior class to practice our ceremony. As one of eighteen, I was always the heaviest in the class and ending my senior year at almost one-hundred pounds heavier than a mere nine months earlier, there was no where to hide. I can still see a look of horror as my assigned junior escort took one look at me, turned and walked away. He would have nothing to do with walking the fat girl down the isle. I was beyond humiliated, and just wanted to melt into the floor. I was humiliated and beyond heartbroken, when another junior boy quickly and with a very tender heart, jumped in and offered me his arm! These are the memories that live with a large girl, they are not pretty, they do not bring warm fuzzy feelings.

I cried a lot during those days, and if I think of that girl even to this day, I cry for her still. Although she is not who I am any longer, I lived for many years with deep emotional scars. After graduation, I rode the weight coaster for the next few years, climbing the hill of gain, higher in weight than I had ever been, peaking at almost 260 pounds when I was twenty-two years old. I quit college after one year, (truly due to the fact that I had began gaining weight again in the middle of the school year, and I could not bear to go through the humiliation again). I held a few dead end jobs during this time but there was no doubt that I was on self destruct and it seemed no one could help. I remember taking up needle point at this time, as something to fill my time. I would sit in my bedroom, totally "content" to do my needle point, watch t.v. until my eyes burned and eat whatever I wanted to. I made some really awesome pillows during that time!

A friend of mine from school managed to pull some strings and I was hired at a local bank in the accounting department and the weight, once again, came off. It was about that time, I began dating for the first time in my life. I suddenly found out that there were actually fellows who found me attractive. In fact, from the time I was 23 until I met the man I married at 24, I was asked by no less than four guys to marry them! To come from where I did, having absolutely no one interested in me, EVER, to having that kind of interest...that was a bit mind blowing!

I married my soul mate Chuck in 1986 and exactly 364 days later, I gave birth to our twin daughters five weeks early. From the moment I found out I was pregnant, I took the old expression, "eating for two" to heart. Imagine my joy when I found out I was having twins; not only thrilled to be having twins, but the food train once again pulled in and never left!

OK, I Have Some Strong Feelings...

I just reread my first blog....OK, so I may have been overly sensitive about the whole weight thing. So, you have three to five to lose, that's OK. So you have hundreds to lose, that's OK too. We ALL need help from time to time, and if it's just a tad of help you need, yeah, I guess you can be part of the club too! The audience I was targeting with my initial comments were those who, like me, have an every day up hill fight to keep the weight under control. Those who have been "that" girl, the biggest one in class; "that" teen who others snickered at and made extremely rude comments about; "that" twenty something year old who had no job, no self esteem, no life, and seemingly no future.

In between those rough times I also lost fifty to seventy pounds, and later upwards of one hundred pounds at one time. I'd starve myself down to the picture of thin, which would bring on a happy me, as attention would come my way from the opposite sex, and my self esteem would be restored...life was wonderful! Then, I'd wake up one day and on that day realize, I was going to be getting back on the coaster and once again climbing that hill...and there was seemingly nothing I could do about it. If you've never had this happen to you I'm sure this sounds really strange. If you've ever been so out of control with your weight, and all you could do was to watch it climb, until a few short months later, you climb back on the scales only to see a seventy to one hundred pound gain, then you are "that" person I want to help.

How many times did this happen to me? Let me see, it's been quite a few years, but round figures...six times from my junior year in high school through my early twenties. I remember my senior year with such sadness as I entered in the fall, having just lost thirty to forty pounds, and feeling good at 140lbs. I graduated weighing just under 240lbs. A hundred pound gain in what was supposed to be one of the happiest times of my life. That was one of the toughest years of my young life. You may be thinking right now, "Wow this is one depressing blog! Does she ever gain control? Is she ever going to find a way to be in charge?" Yes indeed!! I found a way!! History is necessary though to make sure that if you are having these same struggles, you understand where I came from, maybe exactly where you are right now!

Dieting is Such an Ugly Word!!!

First Blog of the rest of my life!!!
Hello fellow dieters...I may assume that you are a dieter, or you probably wouldn't have gone to the trouble of reading this blog. As my tile states, this is the first bog I've ever written, although have been meaning to write about this subject for YEARS!!!
The first question I had to ask myself is; do I really have anything of value to say, to write, to provide you, a fellow dieter, that you haven't already been told over and over again? Probably nothing entirely new, to be honest! What I do know is that after almost four decades of dieting, there is absoulutely NO magic pill, no potion, no quick fix to permanently address this issue. Don't stop reading just yet though.
What I may be able to offer is a plan...not a diet, but a plan that you and I can work on together. Perhaps a good place to start would be to provide a bit of my life long history. I think of my life long struggle with weight as if I've been riding the "roller coaster of weight," it is the best analogy to explain how many times I've been up, way up that hill called gain, and ridden it back down on the other side. The fact that it has been, and will always be my lifelong ride, may lend a bit of credibility to what I have to say.

I don't know about you but am I the only one who resents those woman who write books and make a ton of money on their weight "issue," the ones who post a pre-birth picture of themselves and call it their before picture, and use their "after" picture, which is the size they always are when they aren't pregnant, as their after picture. They then feel the have a right to preach "how they did it" to the rest of us. Us, being the life long losers and gainers and losers....and gainers! I am fed up with those ladies who have not done any real "time" on the coaster, who feel that one time up the hill called gain, and back down on the other side, is enough to allow them into "our club." They have no right to even ask to belong..they know not of what we live, every day, year in, year out.
How about that other friend of yours, the one who weighs about five pounds over her ideal weight, who has decided that since she hit 30 something, she had better be working on that itsy bitsy "tire" around her middle so it doesn't get out of hand...whatever! Go on a three day diet, you light weight, (literally), lose that three to five pound weight gain, and stop whining about it!!
You are NOT one of us, you are not welcome to spout off about how you "lost it" either!

There are REAL dieters who have been up and down those hills since childhood, and if we are not careful everyday of our lives, that coaster cart starts climbing ever higher, ever higher.
I was born in the early 60's, a time when nutrition and health and exercise was a part of the weekly Jack LaLanne Show, it wasn't part of my daily life, nor really anyone else that I knew. Oh sure, there was that weird neighbor who I'd see riding his 10 speed bike to and from his house everyday, but again, he was weird! Still and all, I was by far the heaviest kid in my class almost throughout my entire school age years. No one I knew of my skinny friends were ever driven to an after school club, class or activity. We all had no time for mom to drive us places after school, as we were all too busy playing outside, every night until the street lights went on. Is there a correlation? Of course there is!!
More on that next time!