Not Exactly a New Year's Resolution

If you don't already know, I'm fat.  Way fat.  Like, Gilbert Grape fat.  Okay, not exactly, but I'm in the morbidly obese range and I am more than uncomfortable in my own skin.  So I want to change.  I want to be thinner.  I want to be more active.  I want to be healthy.  I don't want to call it a New Year's Resolution, since I don't believe in them.  (I mean really, why the hell would you wait to do something you've been thinking about doing for 6 months??)  It's more of a change in who I am.  It's more of a change I've been wanting to make for a while now, since the triplets were about a year old.  I just wasn't ready.  I knew it had to be done; I knew it will be really hard.  Since I wasn't mentally there, not completely able to plunge myself into a world without Oreos and mac & cheese, I knew there was no use in trying.  So I let myself go.  Really go.  To the point where I gross myself out.  To the point where I look at myself in pictures and say to myself, "I'm as fat as people I'd make fun of for being fat."  How horrible is that???  It's rhetorical; I know it's horrible.  So shut it.

That brings me to another point...  You always hear people say, "How could you let yourself GET like that?", all judgemental and disgusted, about fat people.  You don't REALIZE it's happening.  I mean, for fuck's sake, I didn't sit down one day and say, "Shit ya know, I'm not nearly fat enough.  I should eat a grocery store from the inside out."  It just... happens.  Like I said, I knew damn well that I was eating poorly, making bad decisions, laying on the couch all night instead of doing some chores.  But I couldn't bring myself to do any different.  So 300 pints of Hagen Daaz, 100 bags of Doritos's, 100 McDonald's milkshakes, and 500 Marie Calendar frozen dinners later, here I am, battling the bulge.

A little background:
I've always been really heavy, and sedentary.  I think being being lazy is a genetic personality trait, from what I've seen through my parents, myself, my siblings, and my children.  Though there's no reason we can't work on ourselves, genetic predisposition or not.  For instance, I LOVE to sleep.  Always have.  When I was a toddler I would pass out everywhere - floors, couches, parties, according to my mom I used to ask to go to bed.  When I was a teenager, I would sleep for HOURS.  Now I know you're thinking, "Duh... what teenager doesn't sleep for hours?"  Which is true, I know.  Though I would sleep from 9 or 10 PM until 1 PM the next day.  No lie.  And I did that until I was like, 21 and going to the bars.  At which point I realized I didn't have enough energy to go out at night, go to work the next day, and then go out again the next night since I wasn't sleeping anymore, so I started doing speed.  Not cocaine or anything, just ephedrine.  I would take one to get out of bed in the morning, after I got out of work, get ready to go out, take another to last until last call, dance the night away drunk as hell, and then pass out and do it all again the next day.  I got so thin.  But I wasn't healthy.  In fact, I was super UNhealhty.  Though I was fit from dancing, I was a drunk, and a druggie.  I met Tony shortly thereafter and became settled, and happy.  And began gaining weight.  Again.

I was 153 when I met Tony, and 190 when we got married.  When I got pregnant with Gwen I was probably around 210, 220.  After having Gwen I was 215.  By the time I got pregnant with the triplets a year later, I was 223, after having done Weight Watchers for 4 months.  I managed to carry triplets to 34 weeks, measuring something like 60 weeks pregnant, and got back down to 225 after having them.  Holy shit, that's awesome, right???  If I had nipped it in the bud there it would have been SO much easier to carry on, lose the 25 pounds and be happy at 200, a size 18 regular, and just be rotund.  But no.  I was home alone with 4 kids, 3 newborns, and I was miserable.  When the triplets were 8 months old I was diagnosed with Post-Partum Depression and weighed 265.  Holy shit.  I gained 40 pounds in 4 months.  How did that happen?!?!??  I'll tell you how.  Doing anything with 3 newborns is NOT easy.  Just feeding them bottles took an hour and a half, then I had an hour to myself before I had to feed them again.  So while I fed them I took to eating with my free hand, in between kids.  I'd polish off a WHOLE PACKAGE of Chips Ahoy in one feeding.  I went through like, 2 packages a DAY.  It was so gross.  I was self medicating my depression with food.  Thank God I broke down and ended up in therapy, and on medication, otherwise I really would be Gilbert Grape fat.

Today I am a 274 pound HEIFER.  That's a smooth 26 pounds from a milestone 300.  Really, what's especially amazing, is that I managed to only gain 9 pounds in the last 2 years.  Not too shabby, actually.  LOL!

Now that the kids are older, and easier, and more active, and now that we're in the new house and getting settled, I am ready.  I am ready to feel pretty again.  I am ready to run again.  I am ready to divorce food and find something worthwhile to occupy my time.  Like my family.  And myself.

So here I start a new journey, and a new blog.  I should really thank my BFF Danielle over at HungryGirl, because she is such an inspiration.  She has so much determination and heart.  Last year she completed a half marathon with her sister, after months of preparation.  This year she started a blog, eating healthier, being healthier, and losing weight the right way.  She gave me a boost of morale and the idea to blog my weight loss journey, which will hopefully keep me on track.  I mean, now that the whole world knows my weight (kinda like finding Spider Man's true identity is really the lame Peter Parker), I feel like everything from here on out is an achievement, right?  LOL  And if I can stick to it, this blog will serve as my reward, showing the world that I CAN do it.  That I WILL do it.  And most importantly, it will hold me accountable.

Here's hoping...