Pictorial History

Early 1st grade attempts at exercise. Also, taller than all the boys.

I’ve been “big boned” my whole life. As a child I was always the tallest in the class and at the center and back row of all the class pictures. My mom had to buy me clothes in the plus girls section. My sisters made fun of me.

Looking back at photos, I wasn’t really fat as a child, just larger than the other kids with my frame. I didn’t start to really gain weight until my teens, but I struggled with my body image throughout middle and high school. It’s not easy being a size 14 when other girls are a size 6 or lower.

No one in my family has ever been under a size 10 as far as I know. My mom is tall and normal size, and is only a 10/12 at her lowest size. Genetics plays a large part of our body shape, size and weight, and the women in my family all have large frames and some have excess weight.

The first time someone told me I needed to lose weight was my high school tennis coach who handed me some nutrition information. I was larger than the other girls on my team, but what I would give to be that size again! I tried going for runs in the morning with a friend, but we ended up walking more than we did jogging. I always hated running around the track before practice too. I also started doing Slim-Fast shakes in high school.

I started to pack on the pounds my junior and senior year of high school when several key events happened. Two of my best friends relocated one with a military family and the other to her mother, the product of a divorced family. I probably had a mild case of depression. I also worked in a fast food joint, which didn’t help either.

Summer of 1995 off I went to college with a little extra weight and probably gained the freshman 15 or 20. I got a free internet and email account that year, and landed a job in the computer lab. With lots of time to spare at the lab, I chatted on IRC and built my own website.

So, I went home the next summer in 1996, saw my moms physician and was prescribed Fen-phin. I started working again in the food industry this time at a family BBQ restaurant and caterer. I lost about 30 pounds that summer.

Back I went to college looking pretty good! But alas, off the drug and back to school I slowly gained it back. The next summer I spent at my sisters and worked at a camera shop, but the store was in a mall in which I had either dinner or lunch at the food court.

Another summer I spent at my dad’s and read the O book recommended by my sister, and I tried to eat well and took several walks a week in the morning before my workday. That summer I switched from 2% milk to 1% and then finally to skim. I love skim milk now, and 2% tastes gross.

I probably gained a few more pounds before graduation, but you see a pattern here of yo-yo dieting. During all my years in college, I had tried to commit to exercising and going to our fitness center, but I would start a program and then eventually stop.

The thing is, I knew exercise was good for me, but I just couldn’t do it, or find time for it. I’m smart and know which foods were good and bad for me, but just couldn’t eat right.

After graduation I went to Germany for a few weeks and lost a few pounds staying with my vegetarian friend. I came back to the states, and landed a job with an online department for a major media company’s newspaper division. I worked long hours, ate a lot of fast food, and had a lot of stress with tight deadlines and a high pressure environment. Sometime during my time there, I bought Richard Simmons program plus three videos. I didn’t stick with doing them.

I packed on more pounds. I never owned a scale, but I outgrew clothes and had to buy larger and larger ones. My online department was eliminated, and my position relocated to another department. By this time, my weight is in the morbidly obese category. A friend and co-worker was doing WW and loved it. She recommended I join.

My sister had done WW and lost a lot in high school, but had gained it back. My aunt had done it and lost a lot but gained it back. My grandmother had also tried various diets over her life. Another member of my family had diabetes and another was disabled due to obesity. My genes are bad I thought, and these weight loss programs only work temporarily.  No one is successful, no one I know at least.

I looked at websites and did research about gastric bypass. I looked at the new lap-band procedure. Most of those programs require that you try to lose weight before you the get the surgery anyway.

Every New Year a plethora of new resolutions to lose weight and advertising trying to sell it to you. So I joined WW in late January 2003. I lost 6 pounds the first week. I was laid off from my job in February, my first job out of college and it was a blow to my ego. I stayed resolute to lose weight though, screw my old employer.

I lost 56 pounds in 7 months. That was only with changing my diet primarily. I had only exercised a small amount. I found out I was pregnant in August so had to quit WW. My OB told me not to try to lose more weight while pregnant, but only to gain no more than 25 pounds. She also told me the Atkins and low carb diets were especially bad as they produce ketones which could harm the fetus.

So I just watched what I ate, and overall did well. My bad habit craving was cinnamon pop tarts. I also drank about a gallon of milk a week which goes great with the pop tarts. I gained a little over 30 pounds.

After my daughters birth, breastfeeding helped me lose the baby weight quickly, but I still needed to lose more. I rejoined WW when she was a month old and was only 13 pounds heavier than what I had left. I then lost more, although a bit slower than before. I bought a treadmill that summer and started an exercise program with walking and workouts. This worked well!

In 2005, I saw an ad that Curves was hiring part time. I started working there and loved the workout. I lost more weight and inches. I was also motivated with my best friends wedding coming up. I was to be a bridesmaid. We went on the cruise in September 2005 and I lost a little more weight afterwards. I started grad school in January 2006 so here I am trying to lose it plus more to be closer to my goal weight. I also want to set a good example for my daughter.