This Journey of Mine

Everyone's body image is intensely personal.  We, as women, feel too much of a lot.  Too... fat, skinny, short, tall, busty, small... and that's just the major stuff.  Let's not forget how we feel about our individual body parts... skin, eyes, noses, arms, stomachs, butts, legs, back, hair (oh, God, the hair!) - feet, even!  I think I have yet to meet a woman who is 100% satisfied with every part of her body, and wouldn't change a thing.  Trust me, I'm not trying to exempt myself.  I'm exactly the same way.  I have a list of body issues an arm long, starting at my unruly curly hair and ending at my gnarly karate feet.

With my PopPop, about 7 or 8 years old.

Why do we do this to ourselves?  There are a myriad of things and people we can blame - our parents, society, our spouses or significant others, our peers, the movies, tabloids - the list goes on.  But the brutal truth is that we do it to ourselves. At least, that's my truth.  I have no one to blame for my struggles with my weight but myself.  Could I blame it on my family?  Sure.  If you look up "emotional eating", our Irish family portrait is staring back out at you.  Happy, sad, hurt, depressed, celebrating, whatever!  We eat.  And we eat well.  My family makes some wicked awesome grub.  So why couldn't I be one of those women who are happy to be heavy?  It sure would be easier!  Because, when push comes to shove, I'm an athlete to my core, and I just can't stand being and feeling unhealthy for one. more. minute.

(An aside:  It was wickedly hard to find pictures of myself through the years.  I've always had a tendency to want to be behind the camera, another fault I'm working on.  So, missing from here are some "fat" pics, but also some of the great "thin" pics during my competing years.  :::sigh:::  should have taken more of those!) 

At my 8th Grade Grad

Freshman year,
getting a little
chunky

Let me share a brief history with you.  I wasn't a heavy kid.  I was active and healthy.  I played soccer and I swam.  I played outside with my friends constantly.  At some point, maybe 5th or 6th grade, I started getting chunky.  My Mom helped me get back to healthy by 8th grade-ish.  I stayed that way for a while.  I wouldn't say I got "fat" in High School (I saved that for adulthood), but there were definitely stretches of time where I dieted to get some weight off.  I was definitely heavy when I got my Black Belt.  And those of you that know me don't get to try to deny that to me - I've seen the pictures.  Then I thinned down again, and started competing.  I'm 5'4", and built like my Dad - which is to say, somewhat like an oak tree.  Oops, sorry... I meant to say that I have a "muscular build".  I have a little waist and big thighs.  If I work my weight training routine wrong, I bulk instead of define.  So, despite my "ideal weight" (remember that chart in Health class?) being 115 pounds, I weighed in at a very comfortable, defined and lean 128.  That put me in a size 5/6.  I was good with that.  Great with that!  Still hated my hair, though.  And my karate feet kept getting gnarlier.

Senior Year
Trimming down

Starting to head
up again,
late '93

Then I got married, stopped competing and had two kids.  It crept up on me, but I got heavy.  Meh, screw the PC stuff - I got fat.  At my heaviest (known) weight, I was 215 pounds.  Did I mention I'm only 5'4"? there are women who have been on The Biggest Loser who weighed less than that at the start.  Now, this was before I got pregnant with my daughter, Casey.  And I met a lady who started my ball rolling.  An angel.  She's one of the most amazing women I've ever had the privilege to know.  Her name is Sandie Lynch, and she started ATP Health and Fitness.  I lost almost 30 pounds with her, getting down to 189 when I got pregnant.  Our goal was for me to not gain more than I had already lost during my pregnancy.  Sandie only wanted me to gain 10-15 pounds (perfectly healthy, by the way, for someone who is already overweight - it's just all baby), which goal I didn't meet - I gained around 20.  Then lost some (spitting out a baby does that).  Then gained some (eating like a piggy does that).  Then leveled off around 200 pounds.  And had a newborn, and now a toddler, plus that energy driven 7 year old.  Which makes it pretty hard to get together with Sandie's schedule.  So... I called Nutrisystem.  And here I am.  About to reveal my real, unfortunate-but-getting-better numbers.

December '94.  You don't need a
full body shot, you can see it in
my face.

My weigh in day, I was 202.8 pounds and my BMI was 34.9.  In layman's terms, that put me well into the realm of obese.  Obese?!?!  Me??!  But...  I've been an athlete my entire life.  Surely, they're not calculating muscle mass.  And no one used those annoying calipers to pinch me, so they must be wrong... right?  Bleh.  It was way to far into the range to be that far off.  So... time to change it.

I've been doing Nutrisystem for 11 weeks, now, and I weighed in this morning.  I have lost 27.6 pounds - I now weight 175.2 pounds.  I've lost 11.5 inches - 4.5 of which are in my waist (only one stinkin' inch in my thunder thighs, though).  And my BMI has gone down by 4.8 to 30.1.  Still in the obese range, but barely.  And, I can now say that to call a chick who is now wearing a size 10 "obese" is asinine.  I bought it when I was wearing a 16, but not now.  I am not obese, I don't care how you calculate it.  Pppplllttttt!

This is my current "before" shot.  It's the last picture
I can find of me - December '11.  Stay tuned
for the "after" shots!

I am, however, still overweight.  Despite the size 10, I'm still not comfortable.  Too much cellulite, too big a muffin top, not enough muscle showing.  And, although I'm getting better, I still need to work on my habits.  Like, when I was trying to decide on something to do to celebrate making it halfway to my goal, I still jumped to food.  "Ooooh, we'll go out to dinner!  I'll treat myself to dessert!"  Yeah, not the direction I'm supposed to be going in.  Manicure, pedicure, massage, getting my hair done...  those should be the treats I jump to these days.  But, you know...  I'm a work in progress.  And I'm hoping to get enough work done to get to my goal body and stay there.  What's my goal weight?  I'm not really sure.  I say 135-140 (I figure a bod that popped out two kids might not get back to that 128 that my 20's enjoyed), but that's just to have a number.  I'll know when I get there.  I might be 145.  It might be 130. It's really not about the stupid number - it's about me, and feeling comfortable in my own skin.  And being healthy.  And being able to put aside my body image issues so that I don't model them for my daughter.  Making sure my husband has a hot wife is a plus, too.  =D