Gimme SumO

Well, actually… I haven’t had a scone in a long while. Or a biscuit, for that matter. But it works for a puntastic title, doesn’t it? Here’s an introduction about myself, with a followup on my current trials and tribulations.

I’ve been through many trials in my life, previous to this one. I was the odd duck, growing up and having to readjust several times, while my family moved around from place to place. Not so much as your typical army fam, but still, enough to spur on a trusting young girl into class clown. I was clumsy and awkward, like many kids are, but I was also a bit naiive compared to my peers. And let’s face it, I was and am, and shall always be a bit of a goofball. So there you are.

While in middle school, I added a little pudge, but nothing much to speak about. I had gone through puberty earlier in life (age seven), so again, I stood apart from many of my peers. My mother was battling her weight issues back then, using slim-fast (the old fashioned, chalky powder. Yuck!) and then tried the Scarsdale diet. (Murdered doctor’s diet. Yeah, a real winner, that choice.) Good intentions or not, Mom had me on the diet with her. I was around 5′4 or 5′5 at the time, not much shorter than my current height, and at 140 lbs.

I love my mother. I do. But I really wish she had never put me on a diet in middle school. I wish, instead, she would have sought out my P.E. instructor and found a way to get me into more physical activities. Yes, I was clumsy, but I have an athletic build, by nature. I could have found -something- to get into. I was a water baby, and spent every day, every summer at the pool, from morning until sunset. Never weak.

In highschool, I ended up having some medical issues. During freshman year, I developed Lumbar Redicular Syndrome and Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy Syndrome, putting me out of commission and in a lot of pain. I remember going to a lot of different places, meeting a lot of different doctors, and going through a lot of different tests. I even remember that nasty stuff they make you drink before a couple of them, too. Evil stuff. But that’s about all I remember. Mom made a journal of everything that happened with my body, and all the tests, everything. I’m sure she has it around here still, somewhere. So… I figure, if I can get through that, I can get through anything.
I came out from that year weighing roughly 160 lbs. Not great, but not as bad as I thought at the time. A couple of years later, I had another bad roll with physical issues. This time, it was endometriosis. I was put on a drug that prettymuch shut down my menstral cycle, for six months. Then there was the lapyroscopy. The doctor played laser tag inside my innards until the bad ol’ endo was gone. Hooray! But between my problems in freshman year, and then in junior year, I didn’t have enough credits to be a senior. So, upon recommendation from my father, I obtained my GED the summer following junior year. That fall, I started my college career, now at 180 lbs. (Here’s one for you, I finally graduated LAST MAY. Rant for another day…)

Since then, it seems to be 10 lbs one year, 5 another. When my father died of a heart attack at age fifty, in 1997, I was twentytwo years old and weighed about 230 lbs or so. By 2002, I had gained another 50 to 70 lbs (I stopped weighing then, so it’s estimated…).  You’d have thought the wake-up call would have done it. I guess I fell back asleep.

Later, in 2002, I started to lose weight. It was eerily a similar situation to the one I’m in now, a period of unemployment. Well, as one job searches, there’s not much that one can do to keep her spirits up, but try to better one’s life.  I lost 80 lbs, over that year and the next, and promptly put much of it back on after working at a movie theatre for the next year. I went back to college in Fall, 2004. I weighed 265 at that point.

I did what I could to fight the battle of the bulge while in college, but let’s face it. When you have as much work to be done as an art major does, and what little time you have left over, you spend with friends~~eehhhh, well. I did walk with one of my friends, but the effort never seemed to get me too far. I ballooned up to 280 lbs, then lost to 270 lbs. Then back up, and fed by prediabetes, I shot over 295 into a clouded area where I no longer weighed myself. Confronted by my mother over my depression at the time, I sought counseling and went to a clinic, finding out about my prediabetic condition. So I fought again. This was last year. I made some real progress. I used a couple of really nice websites to track that progress. I was doing really well! I was down to 265 lbs from 295+ lbs! I had it goin’! But I had to move back home. And I had to commute to college (3 hours roundtrip).
And then my laptop got stolen.

Instead of using the facilities at school to track my weight. Instead of using the home computer. Instead of pushing myself to work out and eat right again, and because driving the distance there and back was a pain in the tuckus, I stopped. My good habits were once again broken. And because I wasn’t tracking my numbers anymore, up up up and away the lbs came.

It was now January 2008, and I was as big as before. Not weighing. Too wrapped up in a blossoming romance, and looking forward to my graduation (finally!) — I knew I needed to get something done. So I started good eating habits I knew worked before. Except they’d go out the window on date night, which was becoming weekly. And my boyfriend loved to spoil me and loved eating as much as I did. Oddly enough, from February to March, I did still lose 5 lbs. But I wasn’t doing too well as getting things under control.

Lucky for me, my boyfriend decided things weren’t working out and the ex-boyfriend diet spurred me on full-forward into weightloss. Mind you, I have never gotten the numbers I did that first week (a whopping 7 lbs unloaded! EEK!), but since then, I have been diligent. Even though it’s been a slow loss, it has been pretty stable and I feel good about how far I’ve come.

I realize, too, that I will always have to track my weight, and nip things in the bud when bad habits rear their ugly heads. I’m okay with that. I feel better than I have in several years, and I am looking forward to the healthy returns of going to the gym and eating right and clean.

Right now, I weigh 254 lbs. I have far to go, but I am taking it one day at a time, one step at a time, and one pound at a time. It’s just like my degree, it’s a long hard battle, but if I stick with it, long enough: I’ll achieve my goals.

Many blessings. K out.