My story - LONG LONG POST!

before I start...I need to add more pictures to this blog! I should take a picture of the 21st of each month so you can see how things are going. Hmmm...I will have to look and see what I can find for April 21. I took a few pic's Thursday night so maybe I can crop those to be just me.

it is Friday night and I can't sleep. DQ and I just finished watching the season finale of "Grey's Anatomy." I love, love, love that show and am SO in love with Patrick Dempsey. He is hotter than hot. But I can't sleep. I can't sleep because I am so excited. Today's weight loss has totally energized me. This happened a month ago - when I first started working out. I couldn't sleep because I would lie in bed thinking about how great things will be, how great I will feel when I lose some weight.

This week I have been bidding on clothes on e-bay. I love clothes that I can't really afford but somehow buying them on e-bay makes it all better. Today I stumbled upon a pair of Lilly Pulitzer capri's (which will be full length on me!) and I won them. I was so excited I was dancing. Lilly Pulitzer is considered a boutique brand which means it is probably cut smaller that your average stuff. BUT - this afternoon I tried on a bunch of clothes from the left side of my closet. The side of the closet full of clothes I am "waiting" to get into. Well trying those clothes on made me feel even better. I tried on the vineyard vine skirts and I think I am going to be able to wear them on the cruise. I also tried on all kinds of pants. One size 16 pant fit - I could zipper them and everything - but they were too tight to be seen in public. But I got them on! I also got on the JCrew pants I have. The ones with bees all over them that I want to be able to wear in August. I couldn't get them zippered but I got them over my hips. That's progress. SO...I am thinking if I am close to getting those pants on then a pair of size 16 Lilly Pulitzer should be do-able in a month or so. This has given me all new motivation to kick butt in my work outs. My focus for the next two weeks - until graduation - are my abs. Yes, I will continue everything else, but I found some ab exercises I can do at home or work. I'll keep you posted.

So...my story. I have been meaning to sit down and write this for a while. I won't give you all the gritty details, and others may disagree with my version of events, but this is MY blog, so this is MY version!

I don't remember always being overweight. I think if you were to look at my childhood pictures you would see I was pretty average looking. My parents were a healthy weight when I was younger. My father was a Marine and always took good care of himself, relatively speaking (if you don't count the alcohol abuse!! wink wink. He has been sober for 28 years now though! YEA DAD!) I always remember my mum being healthy as well. But my first recollection of having a belly was when I was seven or eight. We were living in Quantico, VA. My dad...hmmm...guess he hadn't retired yet because we still lived there. It was the summer and we were at a friends house. They lived catty-corner to us. I was wearing green bikini with some red and white in it. I was sitting in one of those old folding chairs (think late 70's, early 80's). As I was sitting there, I looked down and noticed the roll. No, not the kind you eat. A stomach roll. A roll of fat. Hmph. There it was. I think I still have that roll today!!

In sixth grade I had two awesome Lacoste (back before it was uber chic and uber expensive) t-shirt and short sets. One was red and one was yellow. One day at school one of my teacher's told me I had to retire one set. It was too "snug." I was devastated.

In high school I really started packing on the pounds. I was never really sporty (although I am now a PE teacher! go figure!) but I wanted to be. I didn't play sports outside of school. Unless talking on the phone was a sport. I was REALLY good at that.

My junior year in HS my mum and I joined weight watchers. This was 1988. I don't remember the program much back then. I really can't think right now (it is midnight after all!). What I do remember is that in the first week I lost seven pounds. SEVEN pounds! And on the night of my second WW meeting, I came home and told my dad how much I lost. He was very proud, and then promptly sent me out for chips and dip. Oh the irony. I did very well on WW. I was a superstar my senior year. I was captain on the field hockey team (by default. There were only three seniors. The other two deserved to be captain. I only got it because coach felt badly for me. Didn't want me to be the only senior without the captains pin!), ran indoor track, had a college boy interested in me. It was great. I looked great and felt great.

Fast forward to graduation and college. It was a struggle but for the most part I kept the weight off. I went through a Jazzercise phase - seven classes in five days. Picture this - I wore a THONG leotard and "jazzed" in the front row! I thought I was the bees knees!!! By the end of college I joined a gym. I think I was a size 12-14 by then. But I was religious about the gym. Until I met DQ.

Oddly enough DQ and I worked out at the same gym but didn't realize it until we started dating. We met in February of '97 and I think by the start of summer I was done at the gym. By the end of that summer we were engaged. I had all these plans to be a skinnier bride but it didn't happen. I was crushed, when at what supposed to be my final fitting they couldn't get my dress zipped up.

After we were married DQ and I became runners. Or joggers. Or DQ was a runner and I was a slogger. I call it slogging because it is a little faster that walking but not quite running. DQ has always been a runner but not me. I hate it when I start but love it when I am done. We jogged a lot and when we moved to CA in '99 we entered a lot of races. I joined a running group. Even got an awesome jogging stroller after Scout was born in '00. Holden came along in '02. Even then, even when they were little, I joined a gym and would go at 5:00 AM and work out for half an hour. It was great.

Late summer of 2003 we moved to MA. DQ decides Atkins is the way to go and we give it a try. We both had some success but I personally hated it. Hated Atkins. So off to WW I went. It also helped that my insurance paid for my membership. I had great success and by May of 2004 I was creeping into size 14 again and almost and my pre-married weight. That summer I ran a four mile race in my hometown and was NOT the last person to finish. It was so cute - all my men were waiting for me at the end with a caramel macchiato. The boys were so bummed to have missed me at the actual finish line that I had to re-enact the moment.

At the end of the summer I was solidly a size 14. At the back to school meetings one teacher called me "stunning" and another teacher didn't even recognize me. "Do I know you?" she said to me in the teachers room. NICE!

Then September 8th came. To make a LONG story short, Holden fell out of a third story window and landed on the concrete courtyard below. He was rushed to a trauma center, had a tube put in his brain and was admitted to PICU. For the first few days we didn't know if he would even live. It was a super scary time.

Two days after the accident, we were at the hospital surrounded by family. My brother and I decide to go to the cafeteria to get some food. PICU was on the fifth floor so we decided to take the stairs down. I vividly remember telling my brother "I worked too hard to get where I am now, I am not going to let this get me down." Famous last words.

By mid October my size 16's were tight. By December I was leaving the 16's and entering
size 18. A year later I was a size 18W and that is where I have been ever since. For a while I was in total care taker mode with Holden. But he is A-OK and there really hasn't been any excuse for me not to get healthy since then.

I have given it plenty of try's. A year after the accident I started working out again. Lost about eight pounds and then bagged everything. Probably every month, and certainly every January since, I have said to myself "this is it...I am going to make this work." Yet here I am, in 2008, finally doing it.

So what was the difference? Why now? Well the first thing is we bought an itouch. It is the latest and greatest ipod and I love it. I have no business purchasing it as it is super expensive. DQ and I told ourselves that it would be an anniversary present to each other. Once we had it I wanted to use it! Secondly I found a gym that is only $25/month. There is a gym RIGHT by our house - I could bike there in ten minutes. But it is $60/month. My gym is open early and cheap. Although it seems you get what you pay for. BUT - it has the equipment I like!

Thirdly - I am so, so tired of trying on clothes - anywhere, home or away - and not having anything fit. I am tired of being afraid to run into people I know in my hometown for fear of what they will say AFTER they see me ("ohmigod - she is so big!"). I am tired of my kids seeing me eat like crap and then being a hypocrite and telling them they can't eat like me. I am tired of being embarrassed of myself at school functions with all the Junior League small town MA mothers. I am tired of being the fattest teacher at my school. I am the PE teacher for Christ sake! For some of my students I will be the only PE teacher they know. I am mortified that for some of these kids, when they are in college talking about childhood teachers, they will say that their PE teacher was the fat one who couldn't do a push-up. Now don't think I am being hard on myself. I am not. Everything I am saying is the truth and that's OK. The reason it is OK is because I am doing something about it.

So...here I am on a Friday night. Can't sleep because I want to work out. If my gym were 24 hrs I would probably be there right now. Maybe I will dream about working out and looking good in my new clothes! Or maybe I will dream about meeting Patrick Dempsey. I have a secret fantasy that somehow Oprah will get a hold of my blog and have me on the show. You know - one of those "I did it without surgery" episodes. Then she will have a surprise for me. The curtain will raise and there will be Patrick Dempsey in all his glory. He could bring his wife too. I am not one of those psycho fans who thinks he is going to leave his wife for me! Then Oprah would have another surprise for me. She will have contacted Shep and Ian (founders of vineyard vines) and they will want to surprise me with a wardrobe of vv stuff!!! A girl can dream, can't she!

OK...I better get to bed. As I am drooling over Patrick Dempsey I have two cold sores on my mouth (nice visual) and not sleeping isn't helping!!!

til tomorrow -
Mummy Q.

thanks for listening!