I want to be a success story!

Greetings all!

I guess my roller coaster weight story starts out simply enough... I always wanted to be skinny like my sister. Course now I look back at my little girl pictures and want to shout at her "You look fine!!" But I never felt fine. The fact that eating disorders run rampant in my family coupled with my natural aversion to healthy foods has added up to a lifetime of feeling bad about my body.

About a year and a half ago, I had a major health scare. Almost as scary as hearing "you could have died" was seeing the big number on the scale... I weigh HOW much? So I answered the wake up call and made the simplest goal I could: Just be healthier.

I already knew that I can't diet - I instantly feel deprived and make myself crazy. So I knew my new plan had to be something I could do forever. I didn't set any number or size goals, just decided to try to eat less and move more. Every day. So portion control became my friend. "Just eat one bite" worked sometimes and I set my alarm for the ungodly time of 4:45am so that I could do some kind of exercise for an hour a day.

I didn't weigh myself until the year anniversary of my hospitalization and was happy to see that I was 32 pounds lighter.

And that's where I want my story to end. My smaller body and I lived happily ever after but...

My attitude towards food hasn't changed at all. When my husband and I argue, I want to chomp angrily on chips until I feel better. When my son turned 13 last week, I kept the celebration going by having cake for dinner 3 nights in a row (because isn't it ok if that's all you eat?). It's hard not see these days as total failures and I'm noticing that it's easier and easier to let one bad day roll into another. And worse, I've rediscovered the snooze button so even though my alarm goes off at 4:45, sometimes I don't get up until 6!

I weighed myself yesterday and I've gained 4 pounds since October... maybe not so horrible but then my lovely son figured out that at that rate it will only take a little over 5 years to gain back all I lost.

So this morning, I was back on the elliptical for 15 minutes and did a light kettlebell workout. So here's to staying motivated and on track. We can all do it!!