Might even say a fresh new ME! I got the idea to start a blog from a weight loss program my friend was telling me about. I post about my weight loss on my regular blog/journal, but I think a separate one would be good so I can share my success with others and so it keeps it all together and doesn't take up too much space on my other blog. I've posted A LOT of weight loss stuff over the years on that blog. I don't know why it never occurred to me to create a separate weight loss blog!
Let me start from the very beginning! As a child, I wasn't overweight. I was actually quite thin. I developed early and I remember being a size 10 when I was in about 6th or 7th grade. I was never overweight as a youngster. I remember being around 145 when I was 14 years old (and thinking I was fat!)
When my family moved to Denver, Colorado in 1998 (at the tender age of 15), I got severely depressed and suffered from horrible anxiety! Because of this, I wasn't able to eat without getting sick to my stomach. Most days I would eat a piece of toast in the morning and that would be it for the entire day! I was just too nauseated! I don't know what my weight got down to, but I know my jeans were a size 8. That's probably the smallest I've ever been. I eventually saw a doctor and he got me on some medications and I was able to eat again. I gained weight after that and I got up to 190 pounds by my senior year. Yikes!
My parents divorced in 2001, when I was 18, and I moved to St. George with my mom and younger brother and sister. I gained weight again and was wearing a size 16 in jeans. I got a job in retail stocking shelves and unloading trucks and ended up losing a lot of weight, along with an exercise regime I had taken up. I got myself back into a size 12 jean. Later the next year (age 20) I would be in a 10. My weight steadied out during those years working hard at my job. When I started dating my husband I was 22 years old and wearing a 12 again. When we got married I was around 180 pounds, wearing a 14. After we got married I gained 20 pounds and was back into a 16. I decided to try weight watchers per the advice of my sister who had done it and had great success. I did it and lost those 20 pounds in the course of about 4 months. No exercise.
I became pregnant in November 2007 and lost the baby a couple weeks later. It was devastating for me and I packed those 20 pounds right back on. I remained overweight and struggling for the next couple of years. I couldn't seem to stick to anything! I really had just given up. In 2009 I heard of this diet called the HCG diet and told myself if my husband and I didn't conceive that month, that I would do the diet and put off trying to have a baby until after I did the diet. Well, that month I got pregnant with my oldest daughter (I was about 192 lbs). I got up to 242 by the end of my pregnancy. After my daughter was born, I was 222 lbs. I was soo upset at that! I couldn't believe I weighed so much! I bought an exercise kit off amazon.com called "The Firm Cardioweights System" and I did that along with healthy eating for about a month. I got down to 216 pounds (wearing a size 16 again), but my back went out and I had to stop exercising. I never got back into it. After I had nursed my daughter for a year, I decided to give the HCG diet a go. It was SO HARD. The hardest thing I've ever done. I was basically starving myself, but the HCG hormone supposedly makes it so you don't actually starve, but burn fat instead. It was still a very brutal diet. I lost all my baby weight and then some. I believe I got down to 174 at my lowest.
We decided to try for another baby after this and because I knew I was getting pregnant soon anyway, I gave up eating healthy and gained the weight back. I was back up to 210 pounds when I eventually got pregnant with my 2nd daughter. I enjoy my pregnancies and pretty much eat what sounds good to me. With my 2nd daughter, I gained even more than my first. When I weighed in after a couple weeks of giving birth, I was 242. Yikes. Again, I was agast at that number and knew I had to do something to change it. I signed up for Weight Watchers and really enjoyed the new Points Plus program. I lost about 20 pounds, getting me out of my size 20 jeans and into size 18. I gave up Weight Watchers after a couple months and didn't really try losing weight until another year had gone by. I decided to try HCG again in hopes that it would get me out of my funk! I did 3 rounds of HCG in a year. I went from the 230's to the 160's. It was the first time in YEARS I was in the 160's. Still wearing a size 14 at that weight, but I was so happy with the way I looked. And I had worked hard for it. Later that year (2014), my family moved to Wyoming for my husband's entry level job that he landed after graduating from college as an Electrical Engineer. It was a really hard move for our family. I had developed really good eating habits by then (we're talking, NO sugar at all, ever) and I gave up AGAIN. I remember it starting with an M&M McFlurry. We had just moved to Wyoming. My girls were playing at the playplace there and I knew it was a bad idea to eat it. I knew it was. But I did it anyway. And it was all downhill from there. I packed the weight back on (dude, talk about yo-yo dieting! I am the QUEEN!!!!). I got pregnant 5 months later and I was once again back up to the 210's and wearing a 16 jean again! UGH! I had a tough pregnancy with my 3rd daughter, and I suspect it's because of my weight. I gained the most with my last baby. I got home from the hospital and weighed in two weeks later at 253.
Yeah....
So, as soon as I was cleared to start my weight watchers journey, I did. My first day of tracking was November 2, 2015. I was 253 lbs. I had a great November. I even lost weight during Thanksgiving. Christmas threw me for a horrible loop and I completely went bonkers. January 1, 2016 I pulled myself up by my britches and started over. I was 247. I had gained about 3 or 4 pounds over Christmas. Not as much as I had imagined I would gain. I lost those 3 pounds the first week back on plan!
Today is February 9 and this morning I weighed in at 238.5! Now, that is a really big number. Way way way higher than it should be. BUT, I'm proud of the fact that I'm 5 pounds away from losing my first 20 lbs. And I'm trying to be positive and optimistic about the fact that I have a very long way to go in this journey. And that's what it is, it's a journey. I know it's going to be tough and I'm going to want to give up. But I've had enough of this size 16 crap! The biggest obstacle in my life is ME! My brain told me over and over again that 180 was just too hard to get to! And 150? NO WAY! I have realized now that it IS possible to get there. I can do anything I want!
So, here's my short and long term goals (I have several...you'll see why...)
1. Take my weight loss 10 lbs at a time.
*I lost the first 10 pounds pretty easily and it wasn't "hard". It just took the effort of tracking what I was eating and staying within my points range. I'm currently 5 pounds away from my next 10 lbs goal - 233 lbs.
2. I want to weigh 185 lbs by the beginning of October of this year.
*My husband and I are celebrating our 10 year anniversary in Maui and I want to look like myself for this anniversary. I went to Florida in 2014 and I was 186 for that trip. I remember feeling pretty confident about myself at that weight. I will have a much better trip to Maui if I'm at a comfortable weight. So right now, that's my "mid-term" goal, haha! That's 53 pounds from now.
3. My long-term goal is to weigh 155 lbs.
*That's scary and quite a reach for me, but I know I can do it. We're talking losing nearly 100 pounds. It will be a lot of work, but I know it's attainable.
Right now, I'm doing a version of weight watchers points plus program. They recently changed the program from points plus to smart points. Smart points is a lot more restrictive and I wasn't happy on that plan, so I'm doing a version of that plan and tracking all my points in my phone.
Last week I exercised like a mad woman! I did my firm workout videos 4 days and at night, I would walk/jog on the treadmill. I'm sick this week so I haven't exercised, but I've stuck to my tracking and I'm pretty proud of that.
I follow a lot of other weight watchers enthusiasts and they keep me inspired and motivated! It's really great. This one lady I follow started a 30 day tracking challenge and I joined! I'm on day 19 of tracking and I've had great losses so far. I printed off a 30 day habit changing calendar and I put a sticker on each day that I track. I get two stickers for working out. :) It's been a great motivator for me to stay on track because I want to fill my chart completely with stickers with NO days missing and if I do miss a day, Tyson will see it! (I've got a lot of integrity and I would never put a sticker on a day if I didn't truthfully track that day!). Anyway, it's helped a lot. I was upset after working out last week because I saw gains on Saturday and Sunday, but Monday and today I've gone down to lower weights than I've ever seen. It's been fun to see some new numbers.
I'll add some photos and measurements soon. I've been writing this for much too long and I need to get off this thing. :)
XOXO Katie
