Take it off!

I have struggled with my weight my entire life.

I can’t even fit in my own house anymore! ;)

I was a large baby, 10lbs, 10oz.

I was a chubby kid. In the fifth grade I was the tallest and heaviest of all my classmates. I can’t remember what the reason was but I remember being weighed at school. One hundred and fourty pounds. In the fifth grade. Sometimes I shopped in the Misses section but most times in the Womens section. There was no plus size Juniors back then. My mom made a lot of my clothes.

In the seventh grade, my mother and I joined Jenny Craig and I had tipped the scales at 220lbs.

Along the way I tried various weight loss solutions. I’ve tried a variety of programs. I’ve even tried diet drugs like Phentermine and Xenical (now on the market as Ally). Eventually I stopped weighing myself. But I do know that by the time I was 22, I was wearing a size 24 jeans. One day in 2000, I was 23 years old and the size 24’s no longer fit. I was just shy of 300lbs. I decided that gastric bypass was the only option I had left.

I jumped through all the hoops. All the doctor appointments, all the counseling, I set a date, I was ready. Then my insurance company decided at the last minute that they would not cover my surgery. I was lost. Where do I go from here? Fat had consumed so much of my life. It was all I thought about from the moment I woke up until the moment I went to sleep. Why does the size of my body matter so much? What is so wrong with my shape? I’m smart, talented, loved and at the end of the day the only thing that really mattered to me was how fat I was. That’s messed up. I needed a new outlook.

There were a couple of key things happening at this point in my life. My job was in flux and my grandmother was dying. A lot was about to change very quickly. I decided to roll a new outlook and better health into those changes. By the time I was 26 I had gotten a new job (and another and another after that), said goodbye to my beloved mommom, moved out of state, got engaged and even after some setbacks, finally I was down to 193 pounds. I was still ‘fat’ but I was healthy. I felt really good!

Literally just climbed a mountain!

Then I had a kid.

Oh yeah. Totally going with that excuse ;)

It's been a long road of finding acceptance with my body type. I can accept that my body type is what it is and I am not going to fight it. As cliche as it may sound, I like my curves, I like being a little soft. However, what I can no longer accept is my lack of health. For me, losing weight is not about vanity, it's about survival. I want to avoid heart disease, osteoarthritis, high blood pressure and cholesterol, type 2 diabetes and the myriad of other health issues that come with being obese. While I am very thankful that my weight has yet to create any health problems, I know I cannot continue to avoid these issues with the amount of weight I am carrying around.

An issue that is equally important to me is demonstrating healthy food and exercise habits to my daughter. I feel that I cannot do this without losing weight. I don't look healthy. I don’t eat healthy portions. I don’t eat healthy foods. And unless you count moving from the couch to the kitchen as exercise, I’m not doing that consistently either. It’s a story for another time but I don’t want to put my food issues on Izzy and future baby the way my parents did to me (Sorry mom and dad, its true. I still love you anyway. :) ). I have many goals as a mother but healthy food and exercise habits are definitely in the top five and so far I am failing miserably at it.

I didn’t really have any great epiphany this time around. I had feigned attempts at losing the ‘baby weight’ over the past two and a half years but nothing really stuck. Lately though, I’ve just felt like shit. There is no gentler way to put it. I feel like my insides are made of rotten, composting trash and its just poisoning my entire body. Obviously I don’t enjoy feeling like that. Things needed to change.

I wasn’t quite sure how I wanted to go about getting healthier. Finally I decided to contact Medifast but not before I made sure I had a support team. I asked my friends Jenni and Stephanie if they’d be interested in doing this program with me. We all have different goals but I knew we’d be a great support team for each other. We are all halfway through the first week and having more success than we thought we could.

Ok, here’s where I get brave. I wasn’t going to post before photos *yet* nor was I going to break down the numbers. Because even though this is more about my health than vanity, I’d be lying to you if I said I didn’t hate these numbers. But I still look cute in my before photo - even with minimal make-up. ;) Besides, I figure if I can tell you that I once weighed almost 300lbs, I can tell you what I currently weigh.

Here we go.

Oh man....this is gonna hurt.

My goal is to lose 90-100 pounds. My starting weight was 240 pounds.

I started Medifast on Wednesday, March 2, 2011 and I have lost a total of seven pounds. Go me!

So how do I feel about my first week? It was really great. I’m not kidding. I was totally expecting it to suck a lot. I was ready to gag my way through every bite of pre-packaged food and lay on the floor passed out from low blood sugar. I totally expected to go AWOL in less than 24 hours and smother myself in Shamrock Shakes and Big Macs. But that didn’t happen. None of it did....ok, maybe I gagged on the Apple Cinnamon oatmeal a little but the rest of the food was great! And I don’t doctor it up either. I eat the food just the way it is prepared per the instructions. The shakes are my favorite so far, then the bars. The oatmeals, soups and soft serve ice cream are all really good too. I started a food diary on a separate page and you can read my thoughts on the foods there. Warning, its not pretty - not yet anyway. I am mostly posting from my phone as I eat the food. It’s very stream of conscious and probably has awful punctuation and incoherent thoughts........so it’s not much different from this blog, come to think of it. :)

I expected to be exhausted these past few days but I have had more energy than ever. I feel like my body is being cleansed and can’t wait to get the rest of the crap out of my body. Speaking of crap, I did have a case of the ‘medifarts’ as they are called on the message boards. But I think that is common with any big change in diet. It has since resolved itself and I am back to smelling like roses.

The weekend was really hard because our weekends are not regimented at all. I had a hard time getting all of my meals in and subsequently gave myself a killer migraine on Saturday. The lesson I learned was to keep a Medifast bar in my purse as back up and find two minutes to eat it. But the real challenge was watching my husband and daughter scarf down burgers at the food court in the mall while I ate a Peanut Butter Crunch bar.

Overall my first 5 days on Medifast have been really great. I’m excited to see what my final loss is on Thursday morning after being on Medifast for a week. This is the only program I’ve ever been on in which I am not starving in-between meals or having anxiety about how to fit it into my life. I’m so glad I chose Medifast. I can’t wait to meet my goals and show you all how awesome this program is!

Are you working on your health too? Link up over at Jenni's blog and tell us about it!

If you’re interested in trying Medifast, I have a great deal for you!  Use the code TURNIP50 to get $50 off an order of $275. 

*FTC Disclosure:  Medifast provides their products for my personal use for free.  I am not paid or compensated in any other way for mentioning their products.  All thoughts written here are mine. I love complaining so I would tell you if I didn't like something in the program. :)