What Obesity Means to Me.

Up to 10 years of my life, that's what.

I'm going to lay it all out on the table here people.  Judge me if you must, but it is what it is.  

When I started this diet, my BMI was just north of 40 and that put me in Class III Obesity.  Otherwise known as "morbidly obese."  While I didn't feel good about myself, and I definitely knew I didn't look good, I didn't really feel like I was morbidly obese!  Gasp!  Isn't that what those people are who have to have walls torn down in order to out of their houses?  Who don't even know how much they weigh (unless they go stand on a freight scale) because household scales don't go that high?  That's not me!  

You know what that is?  Denial.  Excuses.  I got a million of 'em.  I don't need to do anything because I'm not anywhere near as bad as that.  I know people who are fatter than me and they look happy, so I'm fine.  I'm a Mom, and this is what moms look like.  I want to be happy and eating makes me happy.  And my favorite - I don't have time.  Yadda, yadda, yadda.

My size 18W/20 clothes were too tight and I absolutely dreaded the idea of having to shop for new ones cause the only place I could find clothes that fit was the "fat lady store."  I was getting plantar fasciitis in my left foot.  I couldn't sleep fully on my stomach any more.  I rolled my eyes if Joel wanted to go for a walk with the kids - like he just asked me if I wanted to poke my own eye out.  It was hard to chase after the kids on the playground.  I had bought a new bicycle and hardly rode it.

But none of that seemed to be the wake up call I was apparently waiting for.  

It took stepping on the scale and weighing the exact same amount as I did at 9 months pregnant with Lily - 232.6 pounds.  That was my moment.

And it's not like I could say to myself,  "Oh my!  Kelly, how did you get here?"

I knew exactly how I got there.  

• 2 babies worth of baby weight.... but make no mistake about it, very little of my weight problem can actually be blamed on having babies.  Being pregnant was just an good excuse for a free-for-all.
• Sausage biscuits almost every morning.  
• McDonald's for lunch at least 2 times per week ("Why, yes, I'd like to supersize that. Oh and I'll take an apple pie, too, please and thank you.")  
• How about, Fazoli's for lunch and eating an entire baked chicken parmesan and 4 breadsticks.  (Ok, 5 breadsticks - I forgot I was truth tellin' here.)  
• Eating out fast food dinner (burgers, pizza, gyros, Mexican) at least 2 times per week.  
• Portion sizes that should have covered two meals - not one.  
• Cooking with lots of cheese, oil, breads, etc
• Four (4!) freshly baked chocolate chip cookies every night before bed.  
• Zero exercise, unless you count volleyball once per week.  Which I don't.
• And many, many, many more but I think I've embarrassed myself enough and you get the point.

Let me just take a pause and say, I can't believe I'm putting this on the internet.  But I'm doing it for a couple reasons:  1)  weight will be a life long battle for me and some day, I may need to read this to get re-motivated and/or to recognize old bad habits creeping back in; and 2)  so many people have told me that I am their inspiration so I just want those people to know where I started - both mentally and physically - to give some idea of what it has taken for me to change.  It's not easy, but it's possible.  And it's every. single. day.

Anyway, that 232.6 lb day, June 24, 2013, I got in to work and immediately signed up for Weight Watchers.  I didn't check my email.  I didn't chat it up with my coworkers and talk about our weekends.  I signed up.  Then I took myself to our "healthzone kiosk" and officially documented my weight, BMI and body fat %.  That night, I measured my body (boobs, waist, hips, arms, thighs).  I took before pictures.

I prepared myself for this journey.  (That sounds soo cheesy...)

This next bit is for my WW comrades out there.  When I started, I got 42 points per day!  Forty-Two!!  Now, 7 of those were because I was still nursing and you get a little boost for being a nursing mom.  But, still, 35 of them were because I was as overweight - er, obese - as I was.  And the really crazy part?  I really, really struggled to stay within my 42 points!  Which just goes to show you how bad my eating habits were.  (Four cookies and milk - 14 points; Fazoli's breadsticks - 4 points...each!; McDonald's Sausage Biscuit - 11 points; Quarter pounder, large french fries, apple pie - 34 points).

At first, I just paid attention to what I was eating.  I was hard core during the week - counted every point, every morsel.  And then the weekends would roll around and I would back way off and not really count that closely.  This resulted in my losing 2-4 pounds from M-F and then gaining 1-2 pounds over the weekend for a net loss of 1-2 pounds per week.

Then, after the first 25 or so pounds came off, I stopped losing as much during the week, which forced me to be better on the weekends to keep losing at a rate of 1-2 pounds per week.  

Then, about 6 weeks ago, I hit 27 points and a fellow WW Warrior pointed out to me that 26 points is the "floor."  The points don't go any lower than that - which means, I was running out of time for food control to be my only path to weight loss.  So I decided it was time to add exercise and I've been doing free classes that are offered at my work 2-3 times per week.

I'm now at the floor. Only 26 points per day.  Which means, there's very little room for treats and that's the hardest part.  FOUR cookies?!  Everyday!?  Ha!  I'm LUCKY now if I can manage 2 cookies 1-2 times per week.  Big difference.

But, the payoff?  38 weeks later, I'm officially no longer obese.  I'm just "overweight" - and I couldn't be more pleased with that!

Weight:  167.6 pounds (down 65 pounds, 28% of my weight GONE)
BMI: 30 (down from 40.41)
Body Fat:  35.7% (down 45.7%)
Boobs:  -6.75"
Arms:  -2"
Waist:  -9"
Hips:  -8.75"
Thighs:  -6"
Dress size:  12 (down from 18W/20)

I think there are several keys to my success.

• I set small goals with relatively short timelines (2 months or less)
• Joel eats whatever I fix or suggest.  He doesn't care too much.  He doesn't suggest we eat out (clearly my weakness).  He doesn't bring in or put junk food on the grocery list.  (By the way, he lost like 25 pounds while I've been on this diet)
• I plan a week's worth of meals on the weekend.  If I have a plan, I'm far less likely to eat out
• I take leftovers for lunch
• If I ever don't have a plan (or leftovers), I almost always get Subway

So here it is.  This is what the journey looked like. These pictures were taken roughly about every 10 pounds lost.  (Can't believe this is on the internet......)

So back to what obesity means to me.  It means that when I was carrying around all that weight, I was most probably cutting my life short - by up to 10 years.  What's going to happen in those last 10 years?  I'm going to have grandbabies (and maybe great grandbabies!) to spoil, that's what.

Even more importantly, the next 10 years are going to be so much more fun now that I have a fighting chance of keeping up with my kiddos.  By the way, the combined weight of my kids is just under 65 pounds.  And it was all I could do to hold them both long enough for Joel to take a couple pictures.