Getting Fat - the EASY part

In order to have a GREAT weight loss story, a person needs to be really fat at one point. This was the easy part of the journey for me.

My dad's wife, Ann, would be more than happy to point out that I infact did NOT struggle with weight my entire life. When she met my dad I was in a 7 slim and I was 7 years old. True, but what she doesn't know is that when I was 5 and my parents split I pretty much stopped eating. I carry my stress in my stomach and as a kid I did it by NOT eating.

However, once I got a little older I discovered that eating really unhealthy food helped me bury whatever was going on in my life. Thankfully this really helped in my GETTING FAT experience. As life went on and I went to high school and then college, I continued to eat away my emotions. It was so much more FUN than dealing with what was going on in my life.

You may be wondering how I over came this. The truth is, I haven't. I've learned to speak up when something's bothering me, but I still EAT when I'm stressed. This summer for instance, I ate my weight at the Salty Iguana. Fortunatly, we've decreased our eating out, BUT the eating away stress is a struggle I will face for the rest of my life.

Back to the story: In high school I went from 145 pounds beginning my freshmen year to 160 by the end of that year. 160 was heavy, but my mom would tell you I had a beautiful body - THANKS MOM!!! I stayed at 160 through 4 years of high school, but then came college.

Let the partying begin, and not just the drinking, but the EATING!!! My friends and I would go to dinner at 4:30 pm. Then we'd be sure to order pizza, stop at Taco Bell or McDonalds around 9ish. Living like that I topped out at 190. I knew I was big, but life was studying and eating, so it didn't really matter to me at that time. No, that's not true. It did matter, but I didn't have the discipline or the desire to do anything about it. I liked EATING and it worked for me.

Once I graduated from college, I got an apartment and needed something to do. I invested in a treadmill, and began to shave off the pounds. Soon I was back to the 160 of high school days.

Then another event triggered old habits- I met David. Once we were engaged, I decided it didn't actually matter how I looked. Isn't the point of being fit to land a guy???? And so once again the EATING began.

At our honeymoon I was back to 190 pounds. Then I got pregnant. WOW, finally, I was supposed to be fat. And believe me, I took full advantage of that - eating Taco Bell at 11pm, DQ Blizzards, you name it, NOTHING was OFF limits. And the great thing was, David was willing to share in my eating obsession. And so we GREW and GREW and GREW. I delivered Gracen weighing in at 240 pounds - ROCK ON!!!!

Then came baby number 2. I think I only gained 10 pounds with him, but when you're already at 220, 230 is still ENORMOUS! After Jadon was born, David and I decided I would stay home with the kids. I got the old treadmill out, and went down to 200 pounds pretty easily. Then came pregnancy number 3. I feel like I did more during that pregnancy - we belonged to the Y so I took a water aerobics class with the older folks, and I believe I may have walked on the track too. So when I delivered Abby I was at 219. NOT BAD! And I immediatly dropped to 208. WHEW HEW, getting skinny for sure.

There's so much more to this story than the numbers though. There's this really BIG lie I would tell myself when I would look at David. "We are just big people. It's OK that we're so fat, we can just be fat happy people." Of course this is a lie, when I was fat, I was NOT happy. I was eating away whatever was bothering me. Not to mention, I was NOT attracted to David. OK, I know, that's really bad - he's my husband, but HE WAS HUGE!!!! It was gross. The two of us were just gross!!!

So what happened to change that???