Ok so I'm starting from the beginning and I'm not calling it a diet... It can't be. I have to be healthy I know this, I know what works for me, and I know that I can do this.

I am hoping that by Spring Break I can have anywhere from 35 - 40 pounds off. I have a really bad schedule the next few weeks but at the end of January I am going to fast for at least 14 days. Until then I am going to eat better. I have really gotten in to making a smoothy from home every morning. I sort of came to a realization this weekend that I really have to start cooking because I need my kids to know that you need to cook and eat at home. It is not so healthy to eat out all the time. Yes you can make healthy decisions when you are out but you can't control what they put in whatever it is you order.

So I'm going to get healthy. I'm not going to put the blame on anyone else, I'm going to get healthy.

More to come...

So I have been fasting for 7 days now. I'm amazed that I am not totally losing my mind while doing this BUT I am a bit grumpy. I have started to get a bit tired and weak but I'm going to make at least 10 days.

I thought it might be inportant that I write about a few things that I have learned while I continue my fast.

First of all, I have learned that I don't have to eat to make it through the day. It is about decisions. Just because it is noon doesn't mean I have to stop everything and go to lunch. I don't have to have a huge meal at any time and I don't have to eat fast food just because it is convenient. It is my decision to put food in my mouth!!!

Second, I had such a huge AH HA!! moment when I was at home with the kids on Friday and I knew that Don would not be home until past 8pm and I was not going to have any help with the kids Friday or Saturday, I was fasting, having a pitty party... I wanted to eat... I wanted to eat... I wanted to eat... AH HA!!! When I don't feel competent in what I am doing... I WANT TO EAT!!! Now I always sort of knew this but it was really evident to me when I couldn't go to the fridge take something out and just eat. Now what am I going to do when I actually can eat? What kind of decision am I going to make. Interesting how it is a vicious circle... Decisions... feeling as though I'm not good enough... eat or not to eat... decisions....

So I went to the doctor yesterday and well everything I was dreading came true. I knew it was going to. I did nothing to stop it... I'm fat, I have high blood pressure, and my sugar is ridiculous. Well I'm giving myself 6 months to get 40 pounds off!!! 6 months... what's 6 months. It takes longer to bake a baby. I'm going to commit to working out 3 times a week. I won't get the three times in this week but I will do it next week. I need to write it on the calendar and put it on the refridgerator so that I can see it every day and someone can always ask me if I got my exercizing in.

It would be nice to get 10 pounds off this month. We leave for vacation in a few weeks and i just don't want to feel like the fat Mama. We are going to be in Colorado and Utah and I want to be able to do things with the kids and Don so a little bit of weight off might help. I'm a bit worried that the altitude is going to affect me but I just need to stick to my plan and I will be able to do what I want to do for the rest of my life.

Today is a bad day. Yesterday we went to the beach at St. Joe, MI and I can't tell you how many times I worried that they were going to yell "BEACHED WHALE" and we all know that there are no whales in Lake Michigan. Maybe I shouldn't have bought a black and white suit... the colors of the Killer whale.

I know that I am really having some problems right now with my health and I have to go to the doctor tomorrow and I think that is why I am still awake at 12:26am. I don't want to get on the scale. I don't want to know that I weigh more today than I weighed right after I had my baby last year. I just want to scream. I have to get this under control. There are no second chances if I choose to eat my way into oblivion and have a heart attack or complications from diabetes. I won't even go to the doctor to have my sugar tested yet I know that I am having problems. Hence... my reasons for going back to my therapist. I really have to work on the things that make me eat.

I know that when I do not feel in control I eat. I am not in control of my life the way I wish I were right now and I need to figure out how to change my behaviors because I can not change the things I cannot control.

What I can control is that I am always saying to myself "tomorrow I will do better". Why can't I do better today? Why do I need to avoid the inevitable? Don’t I want to live a long time for my kids and husband? Why do I want to self-destruct? Do I eat because I feel it is going to solve something? I have found over the years it doesn’t solve anything it just upsets me and then in the long run I eat more.

Jeez I really need to get my act together don’t you think? Quit feeling sorry for myself. Maybe I shouldn’t blog… why am I putting this out on the net? Well, the answer to that is because I need to journal about it and if there are other people out there suffering from this horrible issue of weight than maybe we can help each other.

Ok I need to go to bed. I have gotten a few things off my chest via this blog tonight.

I guess I’m going to get up in the morning. Be with my babies for a short while and then go to the doctor and listen to what he has to say… and then go get my nails done. Maybe that will cheer me up for the day.

Things not to say this Fat person:
10. You have a great personality (I know I do I had to cover up the fat pain somehow)
9. You have a pretty face (Thanks it is a nice compliment but right now I'm so heavy it doesn't help)
8. You know if you just didn't have that fat around your belly (SHUT UP MOTHER)
7. They make lots of nice clothes for your size now (no it's just that they changed the name from "Omar the tent maker" to Lane Bryant)
6. Because your tall you carry your weight well. (NO I DON'T)
5. You just had two babies... (that's an excuse)
4. I bet your kids like to rest on your chest
3. Jeez your just fat (yes I am but how about we just don't talk about it in public until I say so)
2. You've lost the weight before you will lose it again... (I should buy stock in yoyo dieting)
1. Your not fat your just big (If people say this and think they are being nice... I'M GOING TO TELL YOU RIGHT NOW... YOU'RE NOT NICE!!!)

I was sitting in "the red chair" with my daughter one night last week when she couldn't sleep and I was just running ideas for blogs through my head... I could write about how I can't stop with just one donut hole or a handful of m & m's, I have to eat the whole bag, why do I have to have everything for my kids, why do I have so much "stuff"... in thinking about all of this and how it relates to my weight problem I got thinking, everything revolves around the same topic... I am never satisfied with anything.

This is so true. Since i can remember I always wanted more. I wanted what everyone else had and I didn't have. I didn't have brothers and sisters, I didn't have a Dad. I remember that I was one of the very few, when I was growing up who didn't have both parents in the home. That was not the norm in 1970. In first grade a girl moved in to our school and her parents were divorced but her mom was getting remarried so she had that Dad influence.

When I went home there was just me and my Mom. No one else... until I was in 6th grade when we got an Old English Sheepdog, but it was just us. I never really learned how to play with others, fight with others, but I did learn how to be alone. I was very outgoing before that was a good thing because I spent so much time with adults. It is hard to be a child and trying to be satisfied with being who I was when I had my Mom's customers all telling me different things and what was good but more so what was bad about what I was doing or how I was acting. It was very hard for me a satisfy anyone so why would I be able to satisfy myself? Well I could if I filled up on food.

I NEVER had the right clothes. You know growing up in the late 70's early 80's it was all about being preppy and popular. Well, I did have some great friends but I think we all wished we were just a little bit more popular. I know that I always wished I had cool clothes and shoes. But back then they didn't know what a size 12 shoe was and I was a size 16 or 18 and they just didn't carry those sizes and then to be tall on top of it all... (a 16 - 18 back then is today's size 12 - 14) I was not the norm. I could never be satisfied and I was never satisfied unless I was eating.

This subject has truly been an epiphany for me. I am just amazed at how what I do now takes me back to what I did as a kid and how it all seems to be about never being satisfied. So I'm soul searching and trying to figure out why I should not be satisfied now? I have a great husband, fabulous children, yet I continue to eat. I continue to be unhealthy. I'm not happy with my house, I'm not happy with the amount of time my job takes me away from my family, I'm just not happy with myself right now. I need to really figure this out. I have everything, I want for nothing... I eat I eat I eat.

So what do I do. How do I make this better? How do I satisfy myself? I think that it is going to take time but I'm going to work at it. First of all I'm going to fill myself up with the people who love me. I'm going to spend as much time with my husband and kids. I'm going to call my therapist when I need to just talk. I'm going to talk to my Mom about things that are important but I'm not going to let her living in my house affect how I need to eat.

So today while cleaning my office one thing I realized is why I really want to get my weight off... My wedding photos...

Now for those of you who know me and maybe those of you who have read some of my stuff know that I am already married with a great husband and two beautiful children, so why would I be concerned about a wedding?? Let alone photos...

Well our wedding was very different than most. We were married right at the end of a church service back in my home town of Sterling, IL. I had invited about 10 people plus both families and although it was just right, just as perfect as it could be at the time... I was pregnant, there was no white dress, it just wasn't what I had planned on for a second nuptual. I had always had dreams of a cute little white flowing dress with no shoes and my husband to be in a white linen suit, or something close to that, on a beach in the Caymen's saying our wedding vows with about 20 of our closest friends and family, and yes we would ethen float off into the sunset and live happily ever after.

It's not that way. I wore a white top and pants with a long lite blue linen jacket over the top in hopes of hiding my belly. I didn't have anyone do my hair I don't even know if I had my nails done... we just needed, and wanted, to get married. It just wasn't what I wanted it to look like.

On our anniversary every year Don likes to goof with me and tell me that we are married a year longer then what we actually are because he doesn't want Grace to know that we were pregnant when we got married... yet the problem that he doesn't seem to understand is that there are pictures. There are pictures of us in our attire of the day, there are pictures at the small reception we had afterwards, there are pictures of the reception we had at our home three weeks later with me BIG AS A BARN... Girls know. Grace is going to know that we did not have a "traditional" wedding. She's going to ask where are the photos, where is the beautiful dress I wore, she is going to ask. I asked my Mom. She too did not where a traditional dress. I remember when I saw that she had what i think was 3 or 4 pictures from her wedding and none were with my dad. A girl knows.

So, the weight, the pictures. I am hoping that by February I can have at least 40 pounds off and that maybe Don and I can go with Megan and George to Vegas... (George has a Volleyball tournement) and maybe I can buy a cute white dress and Don a linen suit, and we can go to any one of The Wedding Chapels out there and say our vows over again, and have someone take some nice pictures. Or maybe by April I will have more weight off and I could buy a white dress and Don and I could go to the beach in South Carolina and have some pictures taken that we can call our wedding photos. Just something. I just don't want to be big as a barn!!! I want the photos to be special. I have a special guy and we were truly made for each other... I just want to have those photos that capture a moment. Maybe silly but it is on of my goals.

Well for some reason I cannot give my pieces a title right now but none the less I will be glad to write. Today is my first day of 10 days of raw fruits and vegetables. Over the last 10 years or so I have realized that the way that I will lose weight is to eat organically. I need to eat natural foods, take supplements, and get some exercising in.

So I'm going back to following Proper Food Combining. The best way to explain this is that you need to put food into your body in the proper layers so that it will digest appropriately. So, in the morning I only eat fruit. Fruit only takes 2 to 3 hours to digest and it does not digest until it is in your intestines. After noon I only eat vegetables. Vegetables take somewhere between 3 to 5 hours to digest and they start to digest in the stomach. If you were to choose to eat meat you should only eat meet in the evening because that starts digesting in your mouth. ( Please note this is my simplified version of how Proper Food Combining works.) If you are more interested in this way of eating I recommend the website of Lee DuBelle. Her book and life style is what I followed for over a year and lost close to 100 pounds in 6 months. It is all about eating right to fix your insides. I have given this book as gifts to many people and they have had success... It is just a major commitment. You don't have to count calories, you don't even have to exercise if you don't want to, you just have to learn what foods go with what.

Hopefully I can stick to this. I have to get back my former will power. I just have to break down and pack my lunch and snacks... Eat all day if I need to but eat the right things. I must succeed this time. Failure is not an option.

New Blog New Topic

I have two beautiful children, a WONDERFUL husband, a great Mom who has pretty much moved in with us to take care of my children, a good job (stressful but good), I have everything a person could ask for yet I have a very low self-esteem. I know where that comes from, it has been my demon my whole life... I'M FAT. I have lost a lot of weight two times in my life. I looked so good, but I have not been able to keep it off.

You know I'm just like many people who grow up with the stigma of being fat, doesn't matter what I do, doesn't matter if I loose 5 million pounds or stay the way I am, I always think I'm fat. Since I can remember my Mom always told me I was fat. Kids can be cruel and were cruel to me on more occasions then I care to even count when I was growing up. I was so tall and just a big girl. I was 4' 5 when I started kindergarten and well I was a freak in those days. I remember being almost as tall as my Kindergarten teacher and I was as tall as one of the teachers in my school by the time I was in second grade. By 6th grade I was 6'1 and well I was just different. I didn't have a father in my home and in those days... that too were different... and then I was also an only child. Strike 3... I was out. When I got to Jr. High I wasn't the tallest, there were 8th grade boys. There was one other girl who transferred into our school district who was just a smidge shorter than me... she moved in to play basketball which is another issue I may tackle here some day but for now I will focus. Karna, the other tall girl, was very thin, very pretty, and well I was not thin like her. We were friends for a while but we just had a different focus and I really believe she had a lot of pressure on her at home to be the best... I didn't have that. I just had pressure to not be fat.

I got to High School, I was very in to track and orchestra, and wanted nothing more than to fit in, be one of the crowd. I had a pretty good personality, and I had some awesome friends. But I never had a date, no one wanted to date the tall girl who was fat. I quit the track team my freshman year, once again another issue I may have to tackle some day, and that was a mistake. I was such a nerd my freshman year, coming off an eighth grade year that our graduating class remembers as one of the most fun compared to any others... I digress... but I had been grounded from about April my eighth grade year until hmmmm I think Christmas of my Freshman year so well if you don't have your friend base when you start your Freshman year you are no one. As I continued to make my way through High School, I did get my act back together, started hanging out with some great people, got back on the track team and had some success with my music. I was doing ok... yet I was still fat. My mom would poke me in the stomach and say... "You know if you could just get rid of this".

I was always on a diet. In 5th grade it was TOPS with my Mom, then it was whatever diet I would read about in a magazine, also in High School there was this odd little man Richard Simmons who came on the diet front. I would get up at 5:30 in the morning to watch his show, listen to everything he had to say, ate like he said to eat. Yet I still had no dates, I still had great friends, I was everyone's best friend, guys loved to talk to me about their problems with their girlfriends who were my friends... no dates, everyone's friend, "you know Christy you have such a pretty face", all equals... YOU ARE FAT.

Now before I enter into the next part of this blog when I tell you that I was fat I want you to know that if I look back at pictures from high school it's so hard for me to believe I was considered fat. I think at my highest weight in HS was 170 pounds. I'm 6'1”, I do have a larger frame... That is not fat. I WAS NOT FAT. Yet I am a classic case of believing what people tell you. It was also very odd... April my senior year I finally got a boyfriend, went to prom, had a great time. He moved away, I was leaving for college and isn't it funny how the guys would come out of the wood work and tell me, I was too good for the guy I had been dating and I could have done better. Ok ASSHOLES where were you when I wanted to go to Homecoming or a school dance for the prior three years???

So anyway, I go off to college. I meet some great people, yet gained that Freshman 15 and tell myself when I returned home that summer I was not going back to the U of I fat. I refused to eat, unless you call one can of green beans, 3 apples, and who knows how much beer in the course of 6 weeks eating. I also, would work out 3 times a day. Jane Fonda workout tape was my friend. My good friend Lorraine was going to China for a track meet and I would work out with her many days a week... I was going to be thin. I succeeded. I got all the way down to 155 pounds. I wore a bikini (burnt the heck out of my belly one day!!!) it was good, but I was obsessed. I was still not happy. My Mom would still poke me in the belly. I went back to U of I. turned a few heads but nothing major. No boyfriend, too many nights out, too hard for me to have the will power not to eat when I would rather go out with my friends and had nowhere to work out. Over the next few years I gained the weight back, was in and out of a couple BAD relationships. I still had low self esteem, had a hard time in school, felt like a failure, was a failure, I was fat.

Since college, 20 years has come and gone. I got married, got divorced, have had oodles of hours of counseling yet I have gained weight every step of the way. Moved away, gained more weight moved again... and realized I had to get this under control. So I joined a gym, started to work out, but the weight wouldn't come off. I got a job in the northern suburbs of Chicago and decided I was going to lose weight. I was not going to fail and I had to find a way that worked for me. I went to see my therapist in Sterling because at one point I had visited him and he, who didn’t need to lose weight, had lost a lot of weight by starting to eat naturally and I wanted to know how he did it and whom he went to.

Well that was 5 years ago and I went to her and lost about 100 pounds using her ideas, taking supplements, and following proper food combining. I praised her name, she was my miracle worker, I have sent more people to her than I can count on my hands and feet. I truly believe that because of everything she helped me do, I was able to get pregnant and have my beautiful children.

Which leads me back to being fat. I gained all my weight back with Grace and then some. I got so heavy, had hypertension, it was not good. Never lost my weight from her and got pregnant with Mac. With Mac, I developed gestational diabetes and actually lost weight with him.

Now however, I have gained weight. I ask myself EVERY SINGLE DANG DAY when are you going to start your diet. I tell myself I need to take control. I have been afraid to go back to my holistic doctor because I have been so bad. I have failed again. I can’t fail again. I’m worried that I have not gotten rid of my gestational diabetes and that is now real diabetes. But I don’t want to go to a doctor. I don’t want to address it. I want to do this on my own… I’ve always tackled my problems on my own. But it’s not working… I’m not losing. I eat anything my family brings in the house. I don’t cook anything because I am so busy with work. I make every excuse in the book. We are celebrating this, I have to go to that, they won’t have food I can eat… I’m almost 100 pounds more than I was in high school because of all the excuses I have made over the last 20 years and now I am officially fat.

So what am I going to do about it? Do I know what to do? Do I have the means to change my behavior? Do I want to live a long life? Do I want to grow old and see my children, that I waited sooooo long to have, grow up and be wonderful adults? The answer to all those questions is yes.

So I guess I’m going to tackle this mountain. I’m going to grab the bull by the horns and have the will power to do what I need to do. I am going ask for help when needed, I’m going to pray for strength and healing, I’m going to kiss my children every day and remember what the ultimate goal is… to watch them grow. I’m going to call Dr. Renee and tell her I have screwed up and I need to start over. I’m going to see my therapist on a regular basis. I’m going to ask my husband for help when needed. I’m going to eat right, combine my food right, fast every 7 weeks, drink a lot of water. I’m going to exercise a minimum of three days a week. I’m going to blog to help me talk about what is getting to me. I’m going to put myself out there. I’m going to win this battle.

And the next time my Mom pokes me in the belly to say, “If you could just lose this.” I’m going to refrain from the deep desire to want to break her fingers and politely ask her to stop.