One year ago today I started this "get healthy" journey. January 5, 2009 will forever be engraved in my mind as the day I saved my life.
Why January 5th, you might ask? Well, it was supposed to be a New Years Day start, but I couldn't commit. There were too many goodies around that I wanted to finish off first. Yes, your read that right. From January 1st up until the night of the 4th I binged on anything and everything calling it "one last splurge". As if the last 25 years of my life hadn't been exactly that.
I look back now on my past relationship with food and am amazed. Why did I eat so much? I can't honestly say. I've never known how it feels to starve and yet I ate as if that's what would happen the next day. As if all the food would disappear the next day so I'd better eat it while I could. Why?
I don't have the answer. Yes, I got a temporary happy feeling as I ate. For that brief moment, I got a rush of joy simply from the taste of it. Those positive feelings were quickly replaced by negative ones. Feeling overstuffed and out of control is not pleasant.
"Why did I eat that?" "Why can't I stop myself?", "Why aren't I strong enough?" These thoughts were repeated over and over in my head.
"I'll do better next time." I would tell myself. And yet within a few hours I was at it again. Its a vicious cycle that repeated itself.
But on January 5,2009 I stopped that cycle. I decided food would no longer control me. I would be the person I knew was deep inside.I WAS IN CONTROL.
Guess what I found? I got those same "happy feelings" each time I made a conscious decision to be healthy. And no guilt followed.
A new cycle was started. One healthy choice, followed by positive feelings then another healthy choice, more positive feelings and so on. The choices added up and before I knew it I had a whole new lifestyle, a healthy one.
I'm not going to tell you it was easy. And yet I'd be lying if I told you it was hard. It was neither.
I made up my mind, and then did it. It was as simple (and yet complex) as that one powerful decision.
This is where the numbers come into play.
On January 5,2009 (at 5'8") I weighed 278 pounds.
Today, January 5, 2010 I weigh 162 pounds. That's 116 pounds lost.
I started out wearing a size 24/26 jeans (and not being able to breathe in them.) And as of last week I am elatedly wearing a size 8 (with plenty of room to breathe).
I didn't measure my waist at the start date (I wish I had), but I use the yellow belt below to show my progress. The ends barely touched when I started and now look at the slack.
Our family before and after:
When I went to pick out a "before" picture to put up I had a hard time finding one. According to the pictures I wasn't around for the first year of my sons life. I am in very few pictures. (I was at each event, just avoided cameras at all costs.)
And it wasn't just about the pictures. I'm sure I was a "good" mother by any standards, but I wasn't fully there either. I was too caught up in my own misery. My family deserved better, and now they have better.
So while I have "lost" 116 pounds in this past year, I have "found" something even more important.
I have found myself.
One year ago today I saved my life.