I am participating in the Sprint To May Challenge over at Carolinas’ blog NewFoundFitness. Part of the Challenge is to write a bio about yourself. So, here’s mine.
I was always a slender person, never weighing more than 160 when I wasn’t pregnant, which is about 15 pounds from my teenage years. I never had to work out, or think about what I ate. I never had to count calories, restrict what I ate or drank, never worried about any of that because I knew that I would just work it off somehow. I’m not sure how I did it, but, I managed to stay fairly skinny and ate literally whatever I wanted. My sister used to tell me all the time “You better be careful, one of these days all that is going to catch up to you and you’re going to have a giant @$$!” and I always brushed it off and kept on shoveling in the Double Quarter Pounders, large fries and a Dr Pepper.
Right before I moved to North Carolina, I worked at River Downs race track in Cincinnati, Ohio. Growing up around horses, I knew that it was long laborious hours that were put in taking care of these animals, but I honestly never thought that I would be putting in 80-100 hours at the track, and then having a part time job on top of that! I had to to survive! I got down to about 125 pounds. I was a stick figure. I honestly looked bad. I can look back at pictures from way back then and I just think I look sick!
After I moved here, I did put on a few pounds, but I think I actually started to look better that way. I was in a size 6 jeans, and I felt good about myself. My neighbor and I would get up every morning and run 5 miles, and I still ate anything and everything that I wanted, and even went out with the boys and had a few beers, and when I say a few… there were many a night I remember closing down the bar and then heading out to a bonfire until the sun was coming up!! We’re talking Marine Corps hare core drinking here! Still stayed a size 6.
Then I met my husband. We were playing poker at a local bar and I was instantly attracted to him. He’s just like me though, and had absolutely no idea that I was flirting with him. We were friends for a few months, and then our friend set us up so we would wind up together. He was right. We clicked, and have been together ever since. We’ve both packed on the pounds together as well. The many late nights of poker followed with greasy bar food started catching up to me and I crept back up to a size 10. I lost my job, got depressed, and gained a few more pounds until I was a size 12.
Around that time I started going over to a friends house and we were doing Jillian Michaels 30 Day Shred 3 days a week. I got back down to about 170 and I was really feeling good about myself. I could run and play with the kids in the park. I could wear shorts that didn’t go to my knees!! I felt really good! Then, I went on vacation, and I didn’t keep up with it, and then my friend moved to Hawaii and that was the end of that. I crept back up on the weight scale.
I then set my mind that I was going to start working my Jillian Michaels again as a NYR! I did GREAT for the first 3 weeks. Every single day I got up and did my workout. Then one morning, I got up, did my workout, and I went to turn the shower on in the kids bathroom and the handle broke! I decided that I would wait until we got the water fixed before I started working out again. Since I didn’t know where the water shut off was, I just turned it off the best I could and left it. We finally figured it out a couple days later. It was UNDER the house aaaallllll the way on the other side from the entrance. (REALLY?!) So I had to low crawl all the way from one side of my house, to the other, there and back. No big deal right?! The first time it was a BREEZE! In and out no problems. We get the faucet fixed, and a pipe since I managed to break it (oops!! LOL) and then I started my crawl to turn the water back on. On the way THERE I heard something pop in my knee, and by the time I got out from under the house my knee was in some serious pain!! I thought I would take a little bit off from exercising, and that it would be better and I would get back to it!
A week after that I went to the Dr because I was still in pain. They did an MRI on my knee, but when I went back, the Dr told me that there was nothing wrong with my knee, so it had to have been that my knee muscles weren’t strong enough to support my exercising and sent me to physical therapy. I went to therapy for a few months, and things “got better” but, would still hurt when I would work out, so I stopped for a while.
I started exercising again, but this time with a different program called Turbo Jam. It was SO MUCH fun! I absolutely LOVED it, but, eventually, it started making my knee hurt and I stopped and I gained all the weight back, and then some.
The next year I started a NYR to lose weight again. This time I started, I felt great, and my knee was holding up wonderfully! Until it didn’t. I sat down after a workout, because I got it in late, I had to go straight from working out to work. I work from home, so I did a little bit of stretching and sat down to work with the full intention to take a long hot shower after my 4 hour shift. I took a quick break about half way through and when I stood up, I crumbled right to the floor. Back to the doctor for me!
After another MRI, the doctor said I needed knee surgery, that I had torn a big chunk of cartilage in my knee, that it looked like I had been like that for some time to be that size. I had surgery to repair my knee and I was 220 pounds. The heaviest I had ever been in my life. I did PT after surgery. Right after surgery, I had very little mobility in my knee, but after a week, I had almost more than doubled the mobility! My therapist was surprised beyond belief! I worked really hard, and I even started missing squats and lunges!
A couple months later, I started boot camp with a friend from church, 1 hour a day, 3 days a week. He would modify the exercises for me because my knee wasn’t as strong and would really start to hurt after a few reps. After a month, I had actually GAINED weight, so I went BACK to the Dr to see what was going on.
The Dr wanted to put me on Phentermine to “kick-start” my weight loss, but before he could put me on that, he had to do lots of blood work. Everything came back just great, except for my total insulin. Normal insulin should be between 3 and 28, mine was 49, almost twice what it should be! My Dr gave me a prescription for Metformin, and I asked about changing my diet to lose some weight. My Dr was more worried about my high insulin levels than he was about my diet at the time.
I started Atkins on 1November2013 at 224 pounds. I try to weigh in every week. This past Friday I didn’t post my weigh in because I was a bit discouraged because my weight had actually gone up again, to 203.4. I was frustrated and felt a little down about myself. I stuck to my guns tho! I kept on the train, and this morning I stepped on the scale and I was 199.8! WOOOHOOO!! Now lets just hope it sticks!
Anyways! My goal is to be at 175 by my birthday, which is 12June. That’s 25 pounds in 6 months! That’s not a HUGE goal, considering I’ve lost 24 pounds in about 10 weeks. I know it will slow down tho. I know I will get frustrated. But I will just keep plugging away! 🙂
My plan is to do yoga 3 times a week, and work on my Wii Fit Plus 2 or more days a week.
If my weight loss sticks, then I will get a cut and color very soon! I haven’t “cut” my hair since I was pregnant with my daughter, and she’s not 10! I went from having hair to almost my butt, to my shoulders. It was NOT what I asked for and I bawled for days. LOL I’m thinking of going red maybe? I’m not sure. I will be sure to take a before and after picture tho!! 🙂 Hopefully by June I will be able to get my new “sexy” outfit! 🙂
My weight loss journey 