The Road to My Low

It's a little long but it is the whole story. If you are just interested in the dirt, you'll have to scroll to the end.

Yesterday, I talked about how I have been wanting to share more details of my journey. I have come to the realization that I really need to be completely open and honest during this journey. It will help you all to understand me and my struggles more and it will help me to stop hiding. The reality is that if you never knew what my heaviest weight was, when I failed, I could lie about it. I've done that in the past and I am not letting myself do it this time because failure is no longer an option for me. I'm tired of hating myself. I am tired of going out and not doing the things I really want to do because of my weight.

Last year, I had a heartbreaking moment when my husband and I were talking about going horseback riding and I realized that I was too close to the weight limit allowed at the stables. I grew up riding horses and never thought that I would be at a point that I could be turned away because of my weight. (I know enough to know that any healthy adult horse could have supported me but it was the principal of the stable's policy and the embarrassment if they chose to enforce it.) It was a long road to this place so I know it won't be easy going back.

I have always been overweight, not always by a lot, but I always had a few lbs I could stand to lose. I was very active though. I played softball or baseball my entire life. In high school it felt like it was all I did sometimes. Even though I was active and in pretty good shape, I was still a larger girl and I was always teased about it. I don't think I ever wore anything smaller than a 14 in high school. I actually looked pretty good my Senior year but you couldn't have told me that back then. When I graduated in 2001, I weighed around 175.

College actually started off pretty good. I didn't really gain the freshman fifteen. I stayed pretty steady and even lost about 20 lbs doing weight watchers. Then that all changed. An idiot named Jimmy did something really stupid and the result was a completely torn ACL. I walked on it for 5 months before being properly diagnosed and having surgery during Spring break. That stopped my moving for a while. I was in an immobilizer for 3 weeks and then a metal brace for another 6 months. It was a long process and that is when the weight really started adding on.

I tried to stay active after my rehab was over but I was afraid of re-injury and my brace made things more complicated than I wanted it to be.(I had to wear it during all sports) Add to that the depression I found myself in and my weight just kept going up. Fortunately, I finally met my husband and he helped pull me out of the darkness that I found myself in and for him I tried to lose weight. It didn't really work because I really didn't know how. I knew that I needed to change my food but I had no idea how to work out. I had never been to a gym before, I always just practiced for softball. I never really figured out how to do it and so by the time we were married in 2006, I was around or just over 210lbs.

After we were married, I got comfortable like most people do. We both but on weight in our first year of marriage. He loved me, why did I have to kill myself to lose weight? It also didn't help that we ate out a lot. He was still in college and would get a meal plan that had the most Co-op bucks so we ate lots of Chic-fil-a since it was free.(The army paid for his meal plan since he had an ROTC scholarship) After our first year, we spent the summer back at my parents' house for his internship and then he started the Army thing in the fall of 2007. I was up to about 230.

Then the Army entered the picture. When Mac went to El Paso for BOLC II, I went with him. That meant we lived in a hotel room with just a mini-fridge and a microwave. We ate out the entire 5 months we were there. I attempted to work out by going to the post indoor pool that was near the hotel but I literally had a panic attack one day because of all of the soldiers that were there. I was so ashamed to be in public in a bathing suit that I had to get out of the pool and run back to the hotel. I tried to do WW again but it did not happen. I was not going to any meetings, just doing it online and I never tracked or held myself accountable. When we moved to Hood in March of 2008, I was 245.

Since we moved here, I've hidden. I was so ashamed of myself that I did not want to meet anyone. I did meet one person and she focused so much on weight that I felt increasingly more worthless every time I was around her. Unfortunately, she was the only person I knew so I kept hanging out with her. Several times she told me that Tricare would pay for me to get the Lap-Band. Fearing others would treat me the same, I stayed inside. I hated myself but I was so lost that I had no idea how to get out. I didn't know how to exercise. I knew how to eat but putting it into action was hard. I had added stress because my husband was deploying 6 months after we arrived here. By the time he left, I was a hermit or I was gone. I really, really wanted to lose weight for him while he was gone but I was not in the right place(mentally or emotionally) for it to work. I was driving back and forth cross country visiting family and every time I was home all I did was eat. My family loves to cook and they are good at it. I should have paid more attention to what I ate but I didn't. While I was in TX, I tried nutrisystem but it wasn't right for me. I'm a very picky eater so there were only about 5 different items that I liked and eating those things over and over again just wasn't working. I got really bored really quickly. I lost about 10 lbs but then it just stopped and I started going the other way.

Mac came home, all was great and the lbs kept adding up. We traveled a lot and he was here and there for training. I fell into a very lazy routine and things got ugly. In July of 2010, I hit the largest number I have ever seen on the scale. I remember what it was like every time I saw the numbers rise. I remember hitting 200 and hating it. I remember every ten pounds after that. I very distinctly remember when I crept closer to 250. I would hit it and then lose a few lbs. I kept saying as long as I stayed under 250 I was fine. Then I passed it and said the same about 260. Last July, at my heaviest I was 262. I managed to change a few things and lose 10lbs between July and the beginning of April. That's when I decided to really commit to Weight Watchers and start going to meetings. Thankfully I have managed to lose nearly 12 lbs since I started WW on April 7th and now I am down a total of 22 from my heaviest. Right now my long term goal is to be around the middle of my healthy BMI range which would put me at 143. I have 97 lbs to go. When I hit my 40% loss, I will be around 15o or 157(depending on which weight I use to calculate it) and that is when I will decide how much farther I want to or need to go. I know that I will have muscle from running and working out and losing too much may make me too small so when I get closer to that, I will make a final decision on what my goal weight really is.

So there you have it. All of my dirt and shame. I am trying so hard to make things work this time. I feel good about it. I am sticking with my running and heading to meetings every week. I did not intend to weigh in today because I had a bad week but I decided to anyway and lost .8 lbs. Not a lot but at least it is something. I have 1.4 lbs before I hit my first mini goal which is 5%. Running with nearly 250 lbs every week has definitely not been easy but I know that as I stick to it, that number will continue to fall. I want to be completely open and honest during this process because I feel that is the only way I am really going to succeed. This is who I am and where my journey began. I hope you will stick around for the ride and can celebrate with me when I have good days and offer a few words of encouragement on those days when I really don't think I can do it anymore.