Daddy Is Tired

[Warning, this article makes liberal use of  the "f" word - "fat"]

As a little kid I don’t recall having problems with my weight.  But then around the 6th or 7th grade I started to get fat.  Puberty was definitely not my friend – not only was I gaining a lot of weight, I was gaining it right when I was getting interested in girls.  Thanks, hormones.  But in 7th/8th grade I clung to the thought that at least I wasn’t the fattest kid in school.  I was 2nd or 3rd.  And that wasn’t so bad, right?

Then came high school, and I was easily (as far as I recall) the fattest kid in school – and I kept gaining weight.  Four years later I moved to college, and my eating habits (and slothyness) didn’t improve.  It got so bad that one of my friends kept making jokes about it.  Like the one about how when I took off my shirt there would be a “flabalanche.” Ha ha.

So in grad school I pulled it together and started dieting and getting a lot of exercise.  I went from around 280 to 190.  My legs were rocks from all of that steep desert mountain hiking – boy do I miss that.  Then I graduated and moved to Berkeley for more grad school.  I discovered the muffin shop just outside my lab and some of the weight came back on.  Then I started eating out for lunch every day, but I didn’t think it was so bad.  But it was – just after I graduated I’d gained 20-30 pounds.  Then we moved and I started working. Hmm…I wonder where this is going to end up?

Me, nearly at my top weight of 304.8.

In 2002, just 4 years later, I offically topped out at 304.8 (according to Weight Watchers).  Wow.  That’s not the kind of record I’m terribly fond of.  But this was my 3rd or 4th time with WW, and I stuck with it until I lost more than 115 pounds in 2003.  I was at goal!  I was a free lifetime member!  I worked for Weight Watchers, first as a receptionist and then as a leader!

At goal weight, meeting the Duchess with the family

I was at goal until we moved to Virginia in 2006, at which point I stopped going to meetings because, after all, I was a Weight Watchers leader and I KNOW how to do this (famous last words).  I gained about 15 pounds over the first few months, and then over the next 2 years I gained another 10-15.  After a stressful two-week period in which we put both of our dogs to sleep (unrelated illnesses), I gained another 20-25 pounds in October 2008 alone.

Fortunately I caught it before I gained ALL of it back, and I went back to Weight Watchers in Nov. 2008.  I lost weight steadily until the beginning of March, at which point I noticed that I was significantly flabbier than I had anticipated.  I was reading one of my favorite blogs, and Kristen was talking about doing some video called “30 Day Shred.” I looked at the sample on Amazon, liked that there was no modification of the jumping jacks for beginners, and figured “What the heck?”

30 days later I was a graduated “shredhead” – I’d lost a few more pounds, gained some definition in places I’d never had it before (hello, abs…or at least ab), and was feeling a lot better about where I was on my journey.  Kristen wanted to know if I would head up Team Jillian for April, and I jumped at the chance.  How often do you get to have that kind of motivation when you’re working out?

Now, 20 days into that second challenge, I’m down a total of about 45 pounds.  This brings me to 0.6 pounds away from goal (with my shoes on), which qualifies me for “free lifetime” again, but I want to get under the magic number of 192, even with my 2-pound Costco shoes!

I’m still improving, still motivated to work out, and still struggling with the same old eating issues I always have.  But at least right now I have both a workout support group and Weight Watchers going at the same time.  If I can keep that going I’ll have it made.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 21st, 2009 at 6:24 am and is filed under Me, Weight Loss. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.