My name is Julie.
I am a very round woman, weighing in currently at 292.8 lbs at a height of 5'6".
I wasn't always this large. I was always a chubby child, despite my parents' best efforts to feed our family in a healthy way, but I wasn't as big as I am now. I am the only woman in my immediate family to really struggle with obesity. In high school, I was an unfortunate soul to be a witness of a school shooting, seeing things that still haunt me to this day. I carried on as best I could, but never admitted what a strong impact it had on me, despite friends and family trying to point out how much I was struggling.
During my junior year, I started to lose weight when I started to diet and exercise regularly. But, with some continued criticisms about my weight of 160, despite my very prominent curves and strong muscles, I became discouraged and gave up making my health a priority. I felt like my efforts would never be "enough." I would never be "good enough."
When I went away to college, everything I had been repressing basically hit me like a pillowcase full of bricks to the face. I wasn't sleeping, smiling, going outside (too many people), and I was using food as a comfort. The chocolate milk in the cafeteria was amazing. And the all-you-can-eat lunch lines filled with all manner of unhealthy grub was the perfect escape. I went from a woman who loved to meet new people and engage a crowd to someone who would hide under her desk with a vending machine lunch for fear of the world. This is difficult to admit, even now, 10 years later.
Seriously, I had issues.
I spent three years in therapy trying to stop my "self-defeating behaviors." By the end of those three years, I went from 180 lbs to about 240 lbs. I still had a lot to learn and then had to work on teaching myself that I am worth loving, both from myself and from others. Unfortunately, food was still a comfort. Plus, I was working in restaurants with deep-fried goodness and mouth-watering ice cream covered in fudge. Yeah, I basically did not lose weight, I maintained or gained. I tried to lose the weight, but I never seemed to get a good handle on it.
I met my husband in 2009, we were married in 2010, and I gave birth to our first (and only as of right now) son in 2011. During the pregnancy, I had gestational diabetes and got up to 295 lbs. The GD opened my eyes. I ate a low-carb diet and lost weight while in my third trimester. I was left with borderline diabetes post-pregnancy. Because my hubbs and I are students, we are unable to afford insurance, so I have no idea whether I have it for reals or not. Sob story, I know.
Anyways, I have been trying to lose weight and it is a total yo-yo thing. I have made it past the anniversary of the shooting (always a really rough time of year for me, even though it is more than a decade later), and I am re-committed to losing the weight and getting healthy.
So, this blog is going to document my journey from my current 292.8 lbs to my final goal weight of 175 lbs. It says on all the charts that 149 lbs is the upper range for a "healthy" bmi, but my personal trainer said that I am measuring about 165-170 lbs of non-fat. Basically, I have a lot of muscle. I guess I will re-evaluate when I get closer to my goal, but we will cross that bridge when we get there.
I hope you follow me on this journey. I am going to give recipes, tips, ideas for exercising, and giving info on what I learn as I recapture my health.
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