About

My darling baby girl will be eight weeks old in four days.  The last two months have been the most intense and wonderful months of my life. The previous nine months of pregnancy were pretty tough and left me with some baggage – 99 lbs of baggage that is!  When I found out I was pregnant I weighed 145 lbs.  The day I was admitted  into the hospital I weighed 244 lbs (and I am 5’4.5″)!

This isn’t my first rodeo with weight loss. Like most American women I have battled with weight issues and body image most of my conscious life.  I was never a morbidly obese kid but I was definitely pudgy, more so at some times then others.  The real weight gain came in college and later though; the highest I got up to and hovered around was 246 lbs.

In the Fall of 2009 (at 246 lbs) I began losing weight slowly by making small changes to my lifestyle.  I lost around 40 lbs between the Fall holidays and March.  In March of 2009 I joined a weight loss program that proved unhealthy in the end but did help me lose more than 60lbs by August of that year.  My lowest weight ever as an adult was 135.4 lbs in December 2010.  By May 2011 I was about ten pounds heavier and pregnant.  That’s when I really let the eating really begin!  I am naturally a person who eats to comfort herself and let’s just say I was VERY uncomfortable during my pregnancy.

I have done most weight loss programs out there at some point in my life – Jenny Craig (twice), Weight Watchers (more times than I can count), South Beach Diet, Atkins, etc, etc.  I’ve spent so much money on these programs along with lots of exercise programs, books, DVDs, etc.  This time around I don’t have the money or desire to follow any one program.  I want to create a personal program, a lifestyle, that allows me to be a thin, fit Mom while still enjoying food and not beating myself up with my negative thoughts about myself constantly. (Do I even need to get into the way my mind can race and be so hard on myself?  If you’ve read this far, then I bet you know what I am talking about!)

I envision this blog as a way to stay accountable to myself, as a way to explore long-term weight loss and perhaps someday even a way to connect with others going through a similar process.

The Program: I intend to take the bits and pieces that have worked for me in the past from the various different programs I’ve been on before.  I intend to tweak the Program as I go along by what works and what doesn’t work as well as add in any new tidbits I discover along the way.  As a nursing mother I will have to be doing extra research because I want to make sure my baby is getting all the nutrients she needs and I have enough calories in me to take care of her adequately (during other major weight loss episodes I remember often feeling weak and tired, even ditzey; I can’t be that way with a newborn!)  Continual weight loss is the only real barometer I’d like to use for my success (not goals of x amount of lbs lost per week).

Thanks for reading this and I wish you much luck on your own healthy journey!