I want to tell my story. I want to share what I have been through. I hope to come out on the other side someday. For now, I continue onward. I wonder where I will go next. I am floundering and I truly don't know what to do to make it get better. I even went back to a doctor I had gone to for many years thinking she could help me get started. It came down to money again, as it always does with me. I wish I had all of the money I have spent over the years trying to get down to a decent weight. I almost made it several times but gave up and went back up quickly. I sure can put the weight back on well! I wonder if there is a prize for that? I would win it hands down.

I was born in April 1950. My parent were poor. They wanted a better life so they investigated buying a farm in Missouri where land prices were much lower than in Iowa. My parents moved to Missouri when Mom was 8 months pregnant with me. I cannot imagine how tough that was. It had to be a rough time for her. I know she struggled with raising three children in a small home, not much more than a shack really. Dad worked many odd jobs along with trying to farm on a small rocky homestead in a small town no one had ever heard of and many still don't know exists. I can remember playing outside sometimes. I remember not being happy but always putting on a happy face. I pretended to be happy thinking it would make it come true. I have 2 brothers. One is older and one is younger. They are typical brothers who love me very much. I only recently realized how lucky I am to be where I am and to have all I do. I have spent, wasted really, way too much time trying to figure out what to do to make things better. I don't know that money would do it. There is enough money to get by. I have recently been shopping in second hand shops and also started going to garage sales again. My husband and I enjoy going most weekends. We don't know what we are looking for, but we know when we see it. I have to buy books and paper for some reason. Purses too. I can find such wonderful purses for such cheap prices. I have never liked the purses I pay for new as well as the ones I find while on the hunt. I think about people who don't realize how lucky they are. People who can go to a show and pay for the high priced popcorn and pop, and even the boxed candy treats. We did not take our children to the show much when they were growing up for just that reason. It would cost so much to take 3 kids and to get treats. I rarely go to the show. I also was not able to take my kids to the Ice Cream store very often. It could cost ten dollars or more to get something nice for each of us. That plus the fact that I was always on a diet. I did manage to get down to 138.5 lbs once after I had my second child. I then got pregnant with our third and the weight crawled back on after her birth. I actually weighed my least weight after childbirth after having her. It was 168 lbs. I thought that was obese! I would give anything to reach that weight again now. I have a problem staying on any type of eating program for very long. Temptations come along too easily and I cannot say no like I used to over the years. When I was growing up on the farm, we had fun going on the milk route with my dad. He would let us each have a chocolate milk and mom would pack us a lunch that was usually a cheese slice and salad dressing sandwich. I can still remember the smell of those two things. It was a lovely smell. It was the smell of freshly canned milk from our cows. My brother helped with the milking often after dad got another job a long ways away. He helped build several bridges south of where we lived. One was about a hundred feet in the air. I remember mom being alone with us kids a lot. Dad had to be gone and she was strong and carried on taking care of us and the farm too. She did the chores before my brother got big enough to help her out. He was milking mostly by himself by the time he was ten. I can remember him squirting milk to and on the kittens that always seemed to show up every spring. One time dad brought home a puppy and my mom was angry with him. She told him that she did not know how we would find enough food to feed it, we barely had enough for the 5 of us. I don't remember ever going hungry however. We always had enough. It may not have been as balanced as we needed, but it was good, tasty stuff. My grandfather and grandmother lived 8 miles away from us. They had bought a home first, then we bought ours. We all moved to Missouri at the same time. My brother was only 2 when we moved and I was still swimming around in mom's tummy. I still think she was awfully brave. She left her parents and moved over 300 miles away to a small house with only one bedroom downstairs. There was a bedroom upstairs and one room for storage. Not very big. Eventually they would close in the front porch and make it into a nice modern kitchen. Mom was sure happy when that day came. The former kitchen was made into a room for me. It was a pass through room, however, so I never had any privacy. I would sneak over to watch tv too and got tied into bed by mom with a dishtowell  becaise I would not stay in my bed. It was only 8 o'clock and that was when the good shows were on. My older brother was my guardian unless his friends were there. Then he kind of got mean and sneaky. One time they shot bee bees at my feet just to hear me scream. They got into serious trouble when mom found out, trust me. I tattled because I was freaked out scared. My younger brother still teases me to this day. It is his way of loving me. He is a big softie when it comes down to it. We had a lot of fun on that little rock farm during the years we lived there. We ended up moving back up to Iowa to live when Mom could not get a teaching job that paid much after going back for 2 years to complete the degree she had left undone to get married and have us.

Today is another day. It is almost over already. I swear time goes faster than it used to in the past. (a fact of aging, I believe) I did very well with my eating today and I am very proud that I was able to keep it simple and within limits. I had no bread or ice cream. That is major for me. I had a taco salad for lunch. It was made with no shell on a bed of doritos. I used only fork tine amounts of sour cream and salad dressing. That should have helped keep the calories down. Then for supper all I had was a sweet potato with some hungry cow cheese and greek yogurt on top. That was it. It was so filling, I can't believe it. Then we had our usual popcorn treat, but hubby is making smaller batches, so that should help too. I hope to someday be able to say no to popcorn, but so far I have not had much luck in that respect. I had oatmeal and a pear for breakfast. I felt really good about myself today. We shopped a bit and got a new phone. We will only have one when our month runs out on the old ones. It was a nice day although a bit cold and the wind was raw. When we got home, I had a nap. Then when I woke up I went and did 19 minutes walking on our treadmill. Then I rested about a half hour. Then I went and did my 11 minutes to finish up the 30 minutes a day I am supposed to be doing. I have had some female issues again and that is so frustrating. I am dealing with it with an all natural approach. I was on facebook a while today and enjoyed reading the posts on my page that were new since yesterday. I have some pages I have not read because it just takes up too much time. I am done writing for tonight as I am really tired and want to check out the couch. I may have a tofu ice cream bar. I have not tried them yet, but Hunter ate one and never said a thing about it not tasting like ice cream. Goodnight Moon!! I love me~!

I am copying what I wrote in my weight loss journey journal this morning. Outside to the World I was happy, but inside I was very broken. I am worth it. I was always trying to lose weight and always I would fail. Even when I almost died from heart problems, I still did not get wise. I still could not control my pain. Food comforted and forgave and did not ask me to be better. It just was. I became depressed deeply when our little grandchild was born with special needs. I hate the term birth defects. I am like a lot of others trying to lose weight. I have tried every diet that comes out, to no avail. Mostly because I have never had follow through. I quit too quickly. But not this time. This time I am in a battle to win back my life. My new Life started today.

Continuing on in my story. I have lately been watching a show on late at night after dh goes to bed. I am not sure why I started watching. Partly in awe I think, but partly because I can understand the pain. The show is called "My 600 lb Life". It follows several severely obese people as they struggle to become the new them. The one buried under all that weight. I almost said fat, but it truely is not about the fat. It is about the emotional pain. Why do I say this? Because I am living it also. Oh, I don't weigh 600 lbs. Not even close. But, I have been battling the scale my entire life. I am blessed enough to not have to worry about starving. There were lean years in our growing up, for sure. I was told many times to clean my plate because of some poor child in China. What I did not realize at that time was that those children were still starving. My eating did not save even one of them! I was a good student for sure. I was a beautiful little baby. I have a lot of photos to prove that. Why I never believed it, I will never know. I have realized over the years that I am very, very sensitive to words. You know they say words can never hurt you, but that is not true. Words have always hurt me, sometimes when they were innocent, just words that I interpreted to be hurtful. Other times they were truly said to be hurtful. Sticks and stones AND words hurt. The fact that I have let them hurt me is the one I am attempting to deal with at this time. I apparently was not so hated as I thought I was by my peers growing up. They seemed to like my sense of humor. I was the one who grew to hate ME. Sometimes I still do. I sit here writing this with tears coming to my eyes. Why? Because it still hurts. I now weigh 232 lbs. I was up to 265 at my highest. I lost down to 195 a few years ago. I worked really really hard to get to that weight. One day I looked at some pictures we took at a family gathering and thought I looked extremely fat yet. I was devastated. I think I started to give up that day. That coupled with some other emotional happenings was all it took to start to regain the weight. I had been walking many miles per week. Then I got a female infection that was horrible. I fought that for over a year and almost went crazy from being so sick from it. No one knows how bad I felt. Not even my doctor. She put me on antibiotics till the cows come home and I still could not ditch the itch, so to speak. Of course when I got that infection and it got worse and worse, walking was excrutiating to say the least. Then the birth of our grandaughter with many problems, the worst being that her brain did not develop was a horrible blow to all of us. I started the gradual gaining and eating more than I should and having ice cream every day thing again. (I have begun this again now and am dealing with it). I realize that my metabolism is sluggish. It always has been. I wonder now if it has something to do with my heart not working right. I wonder if my heart has never worked right. I look back and now believe it has never worked right. I was always ready for naps when Mom told me to nap. I never fought to stay up....until much later, but that is yet another story. I look back to when I was little and remember how much I loved to have cake and ice cream at family birthdays. I also loved when I stayed with my grandpa and grandma and they would make us homemade pancakes. They always encouraged me to eat up, have seconds, and just enjoy it....and I became really good at it! I know that they were trying to love me and nurture me. I have spent many days and hours and weeks blaming my family for my overeating. I won't do that anymore. They did what they knew how to do. I was no saint when raising my own daughters either. The only good thing about when I was raising my kids, was that I was in a period of eating extremely right at that time. They grew up knowing what was good to eat and what wasn't. Their Dad was the one who gave them things for treats when they were away from me. I never had much in the house at that time. That said, we had to eat cheap foods. We had a lot of casseroles and hamburger helper meals. I never knew how much sodium there was in those foods. So if I give my kids anything, it was probably predisposed hypertension. So far I don't think they have it. But time will tell on that point. I did not mean to get so long winded in this post. I just want to lay the ground work for my project I am starting today. (yes, again) I want to live. I want to be here to see my grandkids grow up and get married, and possibly even see some great-grandchildren. My Mom's Dad died at 68. He was fairly healthy...or so we thought. He had been a hard working man from when he was young. He and my grandma owned and ran a small town grocery store. They spent many long long days there. There were always the wrong kinds of foods for temptation. They sold some deli type foods every day. There was always a meat counter and they made sandwiches to order. Bologna. Wow. What a food. I have to say I have eaten my share over the years. It was quick, easy and cheap. Even after I was married we had bologna sandwiches often. My dh took a bologna sandwich in his lunch for years and years. Had we known how bad it was for us, we wouldn't have done it. When I was going to Weight Watchers the first time, I learned how bad that sort of thing was for us. We had stopped eating bacon and eggs for breakfast every day long  before that, but when I found out how bad the sodium was, that was it for the big B. Thank goodness there are healthy alternatives now days.

Anyway, the 600 lb connection, continued. I have been watching this show for a few times and did not think too much about it in connection with myself. At least I am not that fat, was my thinking as I watched it for the first 2 times. I did not watch the entire show for quite a while because to be honest, it hit too close to home and hurt a lot to watch. But, as I watched more and more, I realized that it is only because I have been trying to behave that I have not gained until I was up there myself. If I had continued to eat the way I was when I was out of control, I know it would not have taken me long to get there. I have been struggling to not gain back the rest of the weight I worked so hard to lose after my Mom died in 2004. I know now looking back that I had a whammy of bad things happend that just triggered my losing control. First, I had some serious work issues happen. I did not deal well with those. I blamed myself for something that had nothing to do with me, and I knew it. Then my Mom got sick and died. I was already almost to my top weight by that time. I promised her I would take care of myself and get fit...and I did....for a while. I lost from 265 down to 195 by going back to Weight Watchers....again. I lost track of how many times I tried and if I knew how much money I spent trying, I would be sick. Then our daughter had her baby boy. We were up there helping take care of him very often. I was, my husband was still working then. We spent a lot of time together and I loved being needed, but the diet went kersplat. My doing, I could have stayed on track, but chose not to. Comfort foods are good at luring a person back into eating wrong. I think they have a life of their own, don't you? hehe. Then I went through the change. Yowser. Even knowing you are going through the change does not stop it. I wanted to run away from home so badly. I would not talk to my dh about it because I knew he would not understand. So, I packed up all my stuff and moved it to an apartment I rented in another town. I pretty much ran away from home. I did not tell him where I was going. I did not tell him why. I did not talk about it....I still don't to this day. I still feel bad that I put a lot on my middle daughter at that time. I only told her where I was. She of course told my dh. He was good about staying out of my way. He truly proved how much he loved me back then. I am not so sure I would have been as good as he was about the entire thing. The hardest part of moving was carrying all of my books in and out from the car. I had a lot of books! And I still do. I love books and think they are becoming extinct. Guess that is why I want to collect as many as I can...to save them. The the last blow to my strength was our grandaughter being born without eyes and her brain not growing. It was the final blow. I had been spending a lot of time with daughter and grandson while she was pregnant. She wanted me there almost every day, and I went. I spent a lot of time on the road between their home and ours. Again, eating wrongly. I was actually going to Weight Watchers and still gaining weight every week!

Now, I have decided to try again. I can't give up on myself. I just deserve being that thinner person much more than I deserve to be fat and obese and putting pressure on my heart. I have also been through 2 heart ablations in the past 4 years. I know my heart will work better if I can get down to a decent weight. I need to. I want to. I can!

I have all the tools. I have support if I ask for it. I am strong enough to do it. Dh and I have begun riding bikes around the lake. We did it quite a bit last summer. We even rode up until a few weeks ago this winter. I hate the treadmill. I literally almost cry when I get on it. It is boring and not fun at all. BUT, dh started walking on it....barefooted. I still can't believe that. Anyway, a short time after he started, I started to do it again too. I was supposed to do 30 minutes of exercise every day. Doctors orders. I decided that 20 minutes on the treadmill was good enough for a start. I know that will increase as I get more fit. I watched Melissa's story of her weight journey on the 600 lb life show. She was so inspiring. She is now counceling weight loss surgery patients! She has the same struggles we all face. Her family has not been as supportive as they could be. They are all overweight themselves. Her dad died before he saw her get down to her lowest weight. I decided when I want to eat something I shouldn't I will say Melissa and tap on my face or wrist like Dr. Oz showed us. So far it is working. I have not eating some things I was going to and will continue to use her name as my inspiration. I only wish I could get in touch with her to thank her. Maybe that will happen. I keep finding websites that are helpful too. I am changing my habits.

I am drinking more water
I am moving more. I get up and move around while the tv squaks ....on the commercials.
I have increased my fiber intake and continue to do so.
I eat veggies all the time now.
                                                           I need to work on slowing down when I eat...and will.
I eat healthy fats.
I control my portion sizes.
                                                           I WORK ON LOVING MYSELF because I am worth it!
                                                           I begin to stop the night time snacking NOW!
I get enough sleep.
                                                      I have begun to look for things to do OTHER than eating.
I am eating on a schedule.
I am eating more protein.
                                                            I still need to start Strength Training...and will.

I am spending a lot of time reading about other weight loss stories. They are inspiring me.

That is all for this time.

Katey, I love you. You are worthy of love. You deserve Love....YOU are Loved by many.
Now, start loving yourself and living more and longer.

Amen.

Well, here I go again. I had a very good day today, although I am fighting a cold. It is winning so far. I did rest a lot today and did not eat too much. It is difficult to eat when one has no taste buds working very well, but I always seem to manage to eat! We went to town to get a few groceries as it is supposed to snow late tonight or very early tomorrow morning. We have a funeral to go to on Saturday. I hope the weather won't stop us from attending. If it does, it does. The people who are involved will totally understand, but I will feel bad because I want to be there for them. I feel like sleeping all day today. It is this cold I am sure, but it sure seems to affect my mood too. Even with the Sun out today, it was bitterly cold. I got out and got some fresh air, which I did not want to do but did anyway because I knew I needed to "blow off the stink" as some say or used to say. I feel very old today. I have done a pretty good job of denying my age so far in my life, but recently it has really been hitting me that I am in the "older set" now. I dragged my feet as long as I could, but here I am anyway. I know many of you feel the same way as I do. Where did all that time go? What did I spend it doing? Mostly taking care of children and feeling sorry for myself, not necessarily in that order. I wonder why I cannot lose weight? Maybe because I have a problem with trying that hard anymore. I want to be a normal weight, really I do, I just don't have the guts to go without the food I need to go without to get there. This realization hit me several years ago now when I was in weight watchers meeting one day. When I realized how little I would have to eat for the rest of my life, I just plain gave up. I have dieted for most of my life. I was about eight or ten when my parents and grandparents decided I needed to eat boiled hamburger and cottage cheese to lose the pudge. Oh, if they had just taken me on walks or rode a bike with me, or found some other way to entertain me that got me moving. I remember going to visit my grandparents and sitting around the room waiting for time to eat. Why is it most of our day is spent either in preparing food, eating food, thinking of food or doing dishes to clean up after food? As I get older it seems like the hours between meals fly by. I get done with one meal and whoops, there is another meal to prepare or eat. I have to admit I am spoiled. I have a husband who loves to cook and bake. He does not even mind doing the dishes. (he does laundry too, but that is another story) I have spent most of my life blaming other people for my problems. If only I could find someone to love me. Not boss me around, but truly love me. I found that but almost threw it away going through my change. I truly went a little bonkers then. I don't know what the solution is that would fix me. I love to eat. I have heart problems, so I know that eating wrong will eventually kill me. I reward myself when I do well, not with food either. I just can't seem to get past the hard work it takes to get the pounds going off again. I am moving more than before, but the last time I was getting fit, I got a terrible infection that took a year or more to get rid of. I gave up again. I could win an award for most times starting over I think. They say it is not about the weight when you are fat. Even Oprah says that. We watched her struggles for years. She has had the best help a person could have and still cannot keep the weight gone. That did not help my desire either, let me tell you. I am a fairly smart person, I am. I know what to do. I do. When that temptation comes, I take a small portion. I do. But, then the banana bread calls me, or the cookies, or the ice cream. I really have problems with Ice Cream. The worst thing is, it never tastes as good as I think it will. But, I still don't stop! I look deep to try to find out what my problem is. It is the immediate comfort that some foods give. Mashed potatoes are one. Ice Cream is one. Chocolate is one. These foods make the bad feelings go away. They really do. For a little while at least. Then, like a drug, you need another one, dish, bar. Even knowing this, I don't get on the wagon. I have been cutting servings in half. Eating only 1 slice of bread instead of 2 in a sandwich. I never have been a butter eater. (unless it is in something) I don't crave cold gravy like my Mom used to do. She had a weight problem all of her life until she went under the fog of alzheimers. Then she would forget to eat, or would ask Dad "is it time to eat already?" She was about 150 to 175 lbs. when she died.
Dad was a big man most of his life. Now he is thinner than I have ever seen him, except in photos when he was young. He has all kinds of health problems and has to watch what he eats too. He has learned to cut back and do without some things. I never worked hard enough to burn fat off that way. We ride our bikes 7.5 miles and I sweat, but the scale stays the same. My set point right now is at 232 lbs. I can eat a lot or a little and stay there. I had a heart ablation. I feel much better and am more active around the house on most days. Except when I am sick. I have rambled on and gotten no where. I do feel better just putting my thoughts down on this blog. Hope your day went well. Happy tomorrow! May you stay safe from the snowstorm. Hugs, from Katie

I want to write this post before I go back and read what I have already posted before in this blog. This is a new year and another chance for me. I have no excuses to fail. I have already used them up many times before. I have been doing pretty well since I had Heart Ablation on Oct. 25, 2011. I ended up back in the hospital on the 29th because of medication issues. I really want to get off of Multaq, but that is another story for another time. Since my ablation, this is the second one I have had, I have lost 5 lbs. I am proud of that, but I know I could have done much better. I am having issues right now. Same old ones probably. Why I don't love myself is beyond me. Perhaps I feel deep down inside that I really don't deserve it. I have only had one dream in my lifetime. (or so I thought) That was to be a Mom and have the best children ever. I have attained that goal. My mistake has been not to look beyond that goal. I have had another Dream however, one I never even considered to BE a Dream. How silly is that? Pretty silly. Anyway, that dream is to be a thin person. I have spent a lot of money trying to get there. I have fallen on and off of more "diets" than I can name. I have tried nearly all of them. Some with success, but none that I could keep up. I have learned in the past several years that dieting per say won't work for me. Eating right is what I need to do. Eating like a quote "normal" person. So, I try to do that. Some days I do alright, most of them really. I only fall off occasionally. I tend to fall into that category when I fall off, I give up. This time I have not beat myself up when I fell off. I can no longer do that. Dear Hubby and I have begun to work out together for the first time in our lives. We have gotten pretty fit during the late summer and fall. If only we had begun earlier in the season. That is water under the bridge. Next Spring will be great. We are at last working as a team. I decided to use this blog as my log of my journey to eating right again, at all times. It will keep me accountable. If I have to write it down here, I will think more before putting it into my mouth. I know this will work. It has to. I have to get some weight off so I can get off of some of the medicines I am on now for my heart. I know that losing weight will work toward that end. Why I have not done this sooner is really not known to me at this time. Maybe it will come out now that I am keeping a journal about it. I also continue to do my Art Journaling. I have still not been able to really connect the two journals together, perhaps I never will. I know that I will do better tomorrow. I promise myself and you all out there that I will. This is MY time. At last. It is way overdue. Help me keep up the journey. Comments are welcome. If you want to encourage me, look me up on Facebook. Thanks and here I go.

Even though I did not get my year started too well on the first of Jan., it is never too late to start. Hugs to me and to all who read this someday. Kate