Food, My Nemisis.

Those that know me in person knows that the one battle I've never really talked about is my weight.  It's that monster in the closet that no one likes to talk about.  Everyone thinks that's it’s easier to ignore a demon than to challenge it, face it head on and try to beat it.

They are sort of right.  It's easier.  But life shouldn't be easy.  When it's easy, you end up lazy and complacent, which is pretty much where I stood with my weight until a couple of months ago.

To give you a little background, my parents were pretty broke growing up.  Like most families these days, we ate how we could afford.  Back then, eating at home was cheaper than eating out.  Back then, moms had somewhat of an education on cooking and taking care of their family.  But, at least in my opinion, changes in schools have made a difference in how we take care of ourselves.  Gone are the days of home economics, where teens learned about all aspects of the home.  They learned subjects like baby care, how to balance a checkbook and how to balance nutrition.  When I went to school, the most we were taught was a lesson in making cookies. 

Nowadays, we're so busy that we eat out more than we eat in.  When I was in the military, I wasn't able to cook for myself.  So at that point, my meals were dependent on either what the mess hall had that day, or choices that I made in restaurants.  Let's just say, I wasn't the best at making those choices.  And by the time I got out of the military I had gained 50 lbs over 4 years.  Then it just kept adding afterwards.  I went from 97 pounds going into boot camp, to my max, over 240.

So I did what most people did.  I ignored the problem.  I avoided cameras, scales, gyms and anything else that reminded me of the problem.  I hated to clothes shop because I hated the reminder of my size.  After all, if I didn't see it, it didn't exist. 

Then, I got married.  To an amazing man I call Superman.  He's very into bodybuilding, which is kinda ironic considering my hatred of the gym.  Not soon after, the idea of a family started to come into play.  Then, I could no longer ignore the monster in the closet.  Because of my weight, I was now not able to get pregnant.  Sounds like a wakeup call right?  Nope.  Even that didn't motivate me enough to lose weight.  Thanks to modern medicine and a phenomenal doctor, I got pregnant.   Because of my age and weight, they made me take a glucose test in my first trimester.  Btw, the fruit punch is so much better of the glucose solutions.  But anyway, my sugar results were over 200.  Blam, there's reality.  Now my eating habits no longer just affected me.  Now, they affect my child.  And THAT was the wakeup call.

To make matters worse, I also have another complication that has put me basically on bed rest.  So now, I can't exercise if I wanted to.  I can't go for a walk, can't go swimming, and can’t lift almost everything.

So what now?

Now everything changes, I'm on a diabetic diet and even though it's a hard change, I'm getting used to it.  And surprise, the weight is melting off.  So the next post, is how I've been eating, why it's working, and if you want to give it a try, I'll also share what has worked for me, and what hasn't.