my journey

I think I've been on a diet since I hit puberty. That's a long time to be worrying about what you eat, how many calories you take in, if your butt looks fat in your neon jammie shorts, or whether you might be more popular if, just if, you could lose ten pounds and not be so chubby.

I've been to nutritionists, registered dietitians, therapists, and personal trainers. I've walked in the doors of Jenny Craig, Nutrisystem, and Weight Watchers. I've tried the Zone, Atkins, Weigh Down, Oprah/Bob Greene, and dozens of other books that all ended up with the same outcome: they never stuck. I've tried to just accept myself as a fat chick and deal with life as such, but I could never do it. I even tried hypnosis, but I just ended up laughing the whole time.

Enter nursing school and its vast array of convenience foods, drive-thrus, break room goodies, and vending machine cuisine that all becomes de rigeur when you become a full-time, time-strapped student. I was eating horribly, feeling even worse, and generally not a nice person to be around. Here I was, learning skills to help care for other people, and I was making myself sick. I got done with finals and was so stressed out, it took me the entire 2 weeks of break to unwind. I said enough was enough, and I walked back in the doors of Weight Watchers for a last-ditch effort.

This time, I ended up doing their Core plan: it focuses on fresh fruits, veggies, lean meats, whole grains, and lowfat dairy, without the obsessive counting of points that drove me to insanity all the other times I tried WW. This is a picture of me the day I started Weight Watchers:






This is a perfect picture of how I was: sugar-coma and tired, depressed, overweight, with that glazed-eye look. Who wants to be like that?

So I committed. There were several reasons why this stuck: first, my thirtieth birthday is just around the corner, relatively speaking, and I couldn't face the idea of approaching middle age looking like I was already over the hill. Second, Jason and I are thinking of starting a family, and my weight as it was would be a huge impediment to getting pregnant. (PS - Don't ask me when I'm getting pregnant.) And, in addition to wanting to wear cute clothes not bought from Lane Bryant or the larger end of Old Navy's sizes, run around the beach in a bikini before I hit a bikini-unacceptable age, and enjoy getting my picture taken, I was finally, truly doing this for me. I wasn't doing it to hopefully get a date, or to lose weight for an upcoming event, or trying to reduce before graduation/summer/Christmas/my birthday, or trying to get into my wedding gown. This time, it's just me.

I started losing, and then I started running. My cousin Jen - practically my sister - is a marathon runner, and I always thought she was crazy or incredibly driven (or both) to get up and actually run for miles, day after day. But she looks fabulous, healthy, fit, and she genuinely loves it, as do many of my friends, so I decided to try it again. Someone somewhere along the way told me that to start running, I should run slower than I think I should, but run for longer than I think I should. I ran around the apartment complex a few times. I started adding more laps. And then I ventured down to Cady Way Trail and ran 2 miles without stopping. It didn't happen overnight, but it was still pretty quick, probably a couple of weeks. People could actually fast-walk faster than I was running, but I didn't care, because I was running, I was doing something athletic and succeeding, and I liked it. I finally got what all the fuss was about.

So here I am, 23 pounds lighter, a couple of 5K races under my belt, and looking at life a lot differently. Cliche, I know, but it's true. I run about 16-18 miles a week, I eat fresh vegetables and hardly touch sugar, and all my clothes are getting looser and looser.

That's my story. I'm sticking to it. Really.