Marriage and babies

This picture was taken Sept. 21, 2008, 4 weeks after my last baby was born.

The first couple of months that I was married I gained back 20 lbs. I went on a feeding frenzy! Then I became pregnant with my first child! I was able to keep my weight gain to about 35 lbs with this pregnancy. So after she was born I was practically back at my worst. It was time to try to lose weight again. I worked really hard and I had the extra bonus of breast feeding and I was able to get back to pre-pregnancy weight by the time she was one. But I couldn't get back to my pre-marriage weight! Then I got pregnant with child #2. I gained about the same amount of weight as the first time and I was back in the same boat. Again I worked hard and got back to pre-pregnancy but not pre-marriage. Then I got pregnant with #3! This time I at and ate and ate. I gained 55 lbs. It was disgusting! After she was born I was full of self loathing. I went back to Jenny Craig and did something I knew and was comfortable with. I did pretty well and lost more than I had before, but was unable to maintain. And I still did not get back to pre-marriage weight. Oh, and then I got pregnant again!! I ended this pregnancy just shy of 200 lbs once again!!! That was just under a year ago and that leads us to the next entry....

The teaching years

My first year teaching elementary school was a lot of fun and hard work. I worked with an amazing team of ladies who loved to eat. We ate lunch together every day and we made it a party as often as we could. We used every excuse to have a party and parties mean food! I don't really remember how much weight I put on that first year, but I do know that I associated a good time with good fattening food. Well, that year ended and half of our student body went to a brand new school which meant half the teachers had to go too.

I got a job teaching 6th grade at a different school and I wasn't excited about it. To make a long story short I decided to go to Taiwan and teach English instead. The first 6 months n Taiwan I was miserable. I didn't speak Chinese and things were hard. So I found comfort in food. I found the foods I liked and I ate lots of them. I enjoyed the second half of my time there, but I continued to eat. I came home from Taiwan the largest I have ever been other than being pregnant. I was almost 200 lbs by this point. It is hard to even write that number down!!!

I came home and got a job at my old school, but not with my old team so I wasn't happy. I kept eating. The following year I got back to teaching 3rd grade with the team that I loved and I decided it was time to take control of my life!!!! This was the first time I got serious about losing weight. This was the first time i went to Jenny Craig. And it worked for me. I lost over 60 lbs and I was confident and secure. My life was totally on track and I was doing great.....but I didn't learn how to change my mindset.

I met my future husband that year.We ate out more and more and once we got married the weight started coming back. And them I got pregnant with my first child. This is where the teaching years end and the baby years begin. I will continue the story in my next post.

The college years

I don't think I weighed myself much if at all the first two years at college. I should have!!! My clothes just kept getting tighter and tighter. But somehow I still had a pretty healthy self esteem and I just didn't understand why the guys weren't interested in me. I enjoyed my first couple years of college, but I slowly began to become less and less social. And then of course I became more and more self-conscious.

My third year at college I moved away from student housing and just kept gaining weight. A little at a time. I would go through phases where I would work on it, but basically I just didn't care. I really don't know what I weighed during those years, I just know it wasn't pretty. It didn't help that I worked at a burger and ice cream place. I ate a lot of burgers, fries and of course ice cream!!! I ended up going to school part time and working almost full time and gaining weight. Don't get me wrong, I had fun, but I could have had so much MORE fun.

I don't want anyone to feel sorry for me, I just want to write my story down. So there it is up to the college years!

The beginning of my battle with my weight

I first put on weight my senior year of high school. That was almost 18 years ago. Up to that point in my life I had been pretty active playing soccer and other sports. My senior year things changed for me. I decided to become more involved in choir than in sports. You don't burn nearly as many calories singing!!!!

I can pinpoint exactly when the weight started piling on. We had a fundraiser for choir where we sold king size candy bars.....I got 50 cents for every one I sold so I figured they were only costing me 50 cents. Therefore I ate A LOT of them!!! I can't even tell you how many I ate but i can tell you that I vividly remember lying in bed at night eating candy bars. I have a terrible memory so the fact that I can remember that says something of the impact it had on my life. I have been over eating ever since!

I gained 20 lbs that year. I wasn't "fat" yet but I was overweight according to the BMI chart. I guess if I am going to write about this I may as well be totally candid and honest. I am 5'6" and when I graduated from high school I weighed 160 lbs. I was 17 years old. So, that it where it all began. I will share more of my story in subsequent blogs. I will also track down a picture of me my senior year! Lucky you....