Yo, Yo! ‘Sup?- my weight

Looking back over my 35 years on this planet, I have been on some sort of diet for at least the last 18 years or so. It started off when I was working at Burger King after school. For dinner I ate BK. If I worked on Saturday and Sunday then I usually ate 2 meals there. The pounds started piling on. By the time I graduated, I weighed about 160-180 pounds,  which was not grossly overweight, but more than I wanted to weigh. I think some people even thought I was pregnant. Shortly after moving to Iowa in April 1994 I lost weight and was around 130. I felt good, and healthy, enjoyed being outside, and went for long walks.

Then I got pregnant a few months later, and of course gained pregnancy weight. Right after my oldest was born I was able to lose it, and weighed in at about 150. That made me happy. Then life set in and I got lazy, and became inactive. I weighed in at 180 pounds when I got pregnancy with my daughter. When she was born though, I walked out of the hospital weighing only 160, so again I felt ok. But the weight creeped back on.

At one point, in April of 2009, shortly before we moved back to Iowa, I weighed in at a mind-numbing 253 pounds. That is when I decided something seriously had to be done. 2 years later I am finally down to 190, and would like to lose around 40-50 pounds more. Oddly, the 60 pounds I lost in the last 2 years just seem to have come off without me really doing anything that I can put my finger on. And now, when I’m putting my mind back into it and really trying to get healthy, it seems I keep losing and gaining the same 5 pounds over and over.

 I know I need to exercise too, and I really wish I had a workout buddy that I can go walking with. Kris likes to exercise, but she works nights so she exercises during the day when I’m at work. Then when I get home she is sleeping. So, I guess I’m off to post a craigslist ad to see if anyone would like to be a workout buddy for me, so I can get off this yo-yo!

Me: Supermodel size

OK, so I am supposed to list the qualities that I associate with being thin and what I think the “thin” me will look like and how I will be different from I am now. Um, let’s see- happy, rich, beautiful, stylishly dressed. Seriously? I think I’ve said it before, I do not expect to be perfect because perfect is entirely subjective. Hell, I don’t think I’ll ever be “thin”. “Thin” is not what I am striving for here. Healthy is what I am wanting. According to doctors, for someone my height- 5’6″, I should weigh between 124 and 155.  I really could care less what I weigh. I’ve been 135 and looked a little too scrawny for my taste. I’ve been 160 and thought I looked ok. It’s not really about how I look though. I had a visit with my insurance agent today to discuss the life insurance policy that I’ve taken out on myself, and how much it’s going to cost me now that they have reviewed my medical records. I’ve got really high cholesterol, not high enough for Lipitor but still pretty high. I have other health issues, and due to those, my insurance rate is higher than what Kris’s is, and she used to smoke, where I’ve never spoke. Anyway, healthy, that’s what I want to look like!

Long time no weight (loss)

Wow, it’s been several months since I’ve even worked with the exercises in the book. Looking back at my previous posts, I like what I saw. I got derailed by the intruders who lives in my house for far too many months.  It’s now time to get back on track and continue my journey into self-discovery. I started this blog because I wanted to find out more about myself, more about why I overeat and sabotage myself.  So now, back to exercise #4, which is highly appropriate at this time. It’s called Why Weight.

Being fat enables me to:

1. eat whatever I want, with tons of guilt that no one else but me can see
2. be the happy, cheerful person that everyone expects me to be on the outside, while on the inside I am hating myself
3. always wonder what people see what they look at me, I know what I see, but why does everyone pretend they don’t see an overweight person?

I know that what people see is not dictated by what I weigh, nor is how people feel about me. But take it from this fat person, I don’t like what I see in the mirror- which is why I’m working to change it. Now if the motivation fairy would just visit me and make me exercise, I think we’d be good.

Exercise the demon!

The “fat” me is overweight, out of shape, unhealthy, lazy. I wear clothes that are typically shapeless and mostly black. When I am at a party I typically hang off to the side and don’t talk to people that I don’t know very well. When I am alone I am bored, hang out way too much on the computer. The fat me likes food obviously, or I wouldn’t be fat. LOL. I like to hang out on the computer and chat with people when I should really be out exercising!

Conflicting food!

OK, so exercise 2 of the book is about compulsive eating. I’m supposed to ask myself What my life would be like if I were thin and didn’t have any conflicts with food. So, if I were thin, I think my life would be 100% perfectly awesome and I would tiptoe through the tulips and never have any stress of any kind and my marriage would be perfect and my kids would all behave perfectly and all my debt would go away.
Yeah, Right!!!
I don’t want to be perfect. I just want to be healthy. I have no delusions that everything will be wonderful once I lost the weight. What I do know is that I will be healthier, my kids will have a better role model, and I will have more energy to enjoy life. My life will be more enjoyable because I will not be constantly stressing about weight. My friends will be the same as they always are, not jealous of my new found thinness, they are supportive of me no matter what. My family will be the same, they will just have a better role model- and probably happier that I’m not constantly harping about weight loss! My days would be spent not obsessing about my weight. I will be me, just thinner and with a much wider selection of clothes to choose from.

Why Weight 1

OK, so I’m reading this book by Geneen Roth called Why Weight? It’s kind of a book/workbook in one. It has little exercises to do along the way so I figured I may as well blog about them so that I can get some good feedback along the way (Hi Carla). Anyway, the first exercise is titled “Who Am I”. So here goes:
Introduction of Heather Hobbs-Thompson
I am a wife of 7 years to a woman who helps keep me grounded.
I am a mother to 3 kids who keep me running around and wondering why sometimes.
I am a daughter to a woman who I miss very much.
I am a best friend to the most amazing best friend anyone could ever ask for (Hi again Carla).
I am a daughter-in-law to a woman who inspires me.
I am sick and tired of being overweight.
I am worth more than what I give myself credit for.
I am a lesbian, and I believe a pretty darn good role model to other lesbian couples.
I am intelligent.
I am OCD.

Muumuus for all

When exactly does it kick in and become 2nd nature? This diet thing is hard!! I mean I seriously do love their food, but maybe there is a part of me that is hiding behind all this fat. If I’m fat I don’t have to exercise because no one expects to see a fat chick running down the road. Nor do I have to dress in really snazzy clothes, because we all know if you are bigger than a size 16 they only make ugly, shapeless clothes for you anyway. So anyway, I’m seriously fed up with being fat, but maybe I just need to be fed up with being fed up. I need to stop bashing myself and just start living. If I leave this world tomorrow, do I want to go knowing that I enjoyed life, or that I spent a lot of money on special diet food and really didn’t live. But then again, do I want to die soon or get healthy and live longer? Obviously I want to live longer. I just need to get out of this mentality that by being on Jenny Craig I am somehow denying myself life’s finer pleasures. I can eat what I want, I just need to change what it is I WANT to eat. Healthy food will fuel my body longer, and I can eat less of it, and still enjoy the occasional snack- and let’s face it, who needs more than an occasional snack? No one! Maybe if I put the image in my head of a certain person I know who spent a ton of money getting gastric bypass and then having a tummy tuck but still eats like they did before and looks like they haven’t lost any weight, then I will finally realize where I’m at and where I want to be. Yeah, that’s the key! I don’t want to be that person anymore. I want to be around for my grandkids and maybe even great grandkids. I want to live a long, healthy life. Care to join me?