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.