Weight: 283 lbs

Measurements:
Neck: 16.5″             Chest: 54″

Waist: 51″               Hips: 53″

Thigh: 28.5″            Calf: 18

Bicep: 17″

Sizes:
Ring…..11
Pants….22w & 48/30 mens

 
Being fat is nothing new for me. I can look back through school photos and easily determine that I started putting on weight when I was in the 1st grade. Maybe it was the school lunches, maybe it was the fact that I was stuck in a classroom for 6+ hours instead of spending that time running around and playing outside or maybe I just started eating more junk food. For whatever reason, I started gaining weight around this time. And I continued to gain weight all throughout my life. In middle and high school I never played any sports and really the only activities outside that I did was marching band. Now that I look back on it, band may have been the reason I maintained the same weight of 220lbs for those 4 years of high school. Well, after high school the marching band stopped and so did all of my physical activities. And the jobs I chose to do from the age of… well all of my working life, didn’t help either. At 16 I got my first job in a call center. My next job was another call center… for a pizza place. My job after that was at another call center, this time for a security system company. And the job after that… yet another call center (this one was for a cell phone company). My days were pretty much, drive to work, at a call center, where I would religiously eat my lunch at a roast beef fast food restaurant every day. Then drive back home and sit on the computer and play games with my husband (boyfriend at the time) while he was on his computer. Around the age of 20, I looked at pictures of myself and thought, “man, I sure have put on some weight!”. I weighed myself and I was at 255lbs. It was quite a shocker, but I still didn’t REALLY care enough to lose any of the weight.

         Shortly after that, I stopped working in call centers and my husband and I formed our own business, together. It wasn’t any better for our bodies, because we sat in a truck all day, and ate out a lot.

 
         It was nice though; being able to travel all around the U.S. and Canada. Before this time I had only left Oklahoma twice. One day, in 2008, we had to stay a couple of days in South Dakota because we were stuck waiting for the state to approve a route for the load. We got the chance to take a mini vacation, so to speak. We went to the Flintstones Theme Park and visited Crazy Horse. The next day we went and saw Mt. Rushmore and afterwards started to head back to the hotel, when I saw a K.O.A. and noticed they had horseback riding. I hadn’t been horseback riding since I was 13, so we decided to stop in a give it a go. I started to read the signs at the horse stables and my hopes were crushed. The max weight was 250lbs. At this time my weight was 280lbs. I don’t know what I was thinking anyway. If I would have thought about it I would have ended up feeling bad for making a poor horse carry all of my weight to begin with. So, it was at this time that I started to realize that my weight had an effect on me. I was depressed for the first time EVER and it was about my weight that I hadn’t cared about AT ALL before this day. But that depression went away, within a couple of days, and I went on with my life. Even after my realization of the impact my weight had on me I still didn’t even care enough to do anything about it.

This is my A'ha moment. Seeing this photo made me start caring

            One day, while looking at a picture of myself from Idaho, I had my A’ha moment. I finally decided that I needed to get my weight under control.  I started looking online for tips on losing weight and dieting. I guess I hoped I would find a website that would tell me how to lose weight without exercising and being able to eat whatever I wanted. I didn’t find a website that was like I had hoped, but I did find one that will forever change my life.

          In September of 2008 I stumbled across SparkPeople.com. This website gave me the ability to track my food using its’ huge database of food and I also can enter my own food information or search food that other members have entered if I eat something not listed. It helped me to realize how many calories I was eating in a day. I wasn’t interested in exercising yet, but it also had a fitness tracker, along with strength training.

          Although this website was wonderful I still didn’t feel like giving it my all. Even with the many recipes to choose from to help me eat better, I still was choosing to eat out with my husband two or three times a day. I did, however, change WHAT I ate at those restaurants. I don’t know when it happened, but sometime between September and November of 2008 I lost 17 lbs just by making this one change. I couldn’t believe it. Something so small and simple like not getting the larger portion or making sure I ate three meals and two snacks a day really made me lose weight.

        Now here it is January and it is resolution season. I will make the same resolution I make every year, but this year will be different. Armed with what I have learned I will lose weight. I have joined back with Spark People and will take advantage of everything it has to offer. I will start to exercise and find myself at the end of 2009 to be a happier and healthier person because of my decisions I will make throughout the year. I now realize that this is a lifestyle change, not a diet. So, with everything I’ve got… here it goes.