Progress Photos

I have been asked several times for progress photos, so this post is going to be an ongoing post with my progress photos all in one spot. It makes it easier for me to see the difference in my body this way. Here they are so far with dates for each.

Tuesday Check-in

It has been a crazy week. I didn't lose any weight at my Wednesday Weigh-in, so I was kind of bummed about that since I had earned 19 activity points; then again, I didn't gain any either, so that is good. Wednesday, I attended a property tax meeting to protest raising the millage for the local fire station. There was a pretty good crowd for a 5:30pm meeting there to protest the millage increase, but they did it anyway. Scary thing was our local area has 3 fire stations each contains 5-6 different pieces of equipment, but only 1-3 people are on duty at each fire station at one time. It doesn't compute! Why have all that equipment if you have no one to operate it? I also attended an altered journal workshop at the library that evening. This was really cool. Our teacher, Anna Marie, was very informative. She is one of those literary/artistic people that works in a book store. Just a really cool evening, I had out with a friend. I love doing mixed media art and have wanted to do some altered journal/books, but time and supplies are limited. Also, Glenn Beck has been encouraging his listeners to get a Moleskin and keep a journal about what America was like in our day and time. While I would love to buy a real Moleskine, I opted to use a sketch book that I already had and a less expensive journal that I purchased recently at Barnes and Noble. I decided to take the time and work on one. I will post pictures as they progress.

Thursday, I was able to have a pretty normal day with a 40 minute walk on the Trace, but I was feeling a little out of sorts. Well Friday, I found out why. I ended up sick and in bed Friday evening and Saturday.

Sunday, we had church and then a wedding and more church, so no walk and no down time. Monday was a comedy of errors too. My husband's battery died and I had to go to Covington to help him get a new one. We ended up eating at McDonald's inside Wal-Mart. Has anyone noticed how expensive McDonald's is getting? Sure, I can order off the dollar menu, but everything else has sky-rocketed in price when I think about the nutritional value of it. Maybe it is just me, but if I'm going to spend $15 for the three of us to eat, I'm better off cooking for myself. We can have steak for less than $15. Last night was just horrible. Butterbean has come down with a cold. She started out in her bed, but came to ours around midnight. She spent the night sniffling, crying and kicking. Alan finally gave up sleeping in the bed with us and went to the living room. We got up this morning and went to work where I attempted to keep the yellow snot off of her, me and the office equipment. The pastor let me leave early, so I could get her home and in bed after watching her cling to me. I'm driving home after just telling Butterbean's grandma that no I won't be taking her to the doctor, because they probably won't do anything for her anyway when a news report comes on about the Swine Flu vaccine that will be coming out soon. So now, I am wondering if I should take her to the doctor? What is a mom to do? No fever yet, so I'm waiting on spending the co-pay only to be told that can't do anything for her.

So, tomorrow, we will see if I get my next 5lb. star. That will take me to 35 lbs lost at WW and total 64 lbs. People have been asking for progress pics, so here is one taken on August 3, 2009. This is my 5k Summer Beach Run tank which is an XL size, the biggest that they had. I'll try to remember to take another picture on September 3rd with the same shirt and hopefully, we will see some progress.

My Weight Loss Journey, part 2

Butterbean's third birthday and yes, I'm eating a cupcake.

Morbid Obesity. When I was pregnant with my only child, the OB sent me to have special ultrasounds done in Baton Rouge. He told me it was because there was a slight possibility due to my age and some blood work that he had run that my baby may have a congenital defect. After determining that she didn't, the doctor kept sending me to have these ultrasounds every month or so. As a soon to by mom, I love seeing my baby all the time, but wondered why we needed to do this so often. On my final trip to Baton Rouge, I found out. Morbid Obesity was the reason they listed for the insurance company. Morbid? I never considered myself morbid. Sure, I was fat. I was 315 lbs, but still in my mind I wasn't MORBID. Isn’t it funny how the mind allows us to go on believing the little white lies that we tell ourselves?

Anyway, I joined Weight Watchers on March 26, 2009 weighing in at 310.8 lbs, five pounds less than when I was 9 months pregnant and 29 pounds less than my highest weight. I lost 5.2 lbs. my first week. WooHoo for Weight Watchers! I got my first gold star! Then I went home and plugged my weight into the weight tracker on their website. It scolded me. It said that I was losing weight too quickly and needed to slow down. Weight Watchers wants its members to lose no more than two pounds a week. It said that if I needed to know how to slow my weight loss I could talk to my leader. At 300+ pounds, I was pretty sure I knew how to slow down my weight loss. I was a master at not losing weight, so I didn't need some woman who lost 30 pounds several years ago to tell me to eat more and do less.

My next week, I lost 2.2 pounds. Woo Hoo again! Once again, the weight tracker scolded me and said I should not lose more than two pounds a week. The next week, I gained .8 pounds. Mr. Weight Tracker was like a kind mentor rather than a drill sergeant. "You gained a bit this week," it said. "Talk to your leader about how you can get back on track."

As frustrating as that first gain was, it is comforting to know that if it was a setback not failure in the eyes of the Weight Watcher's tracker. I was learning to take the numbers for what they were, just numbers. They wouldn't change who I was inside. They were just a measure of where I was right at that moment. No more, no less.

Weight Loss, my journey thus far, Part one

I have been obese for as long as I can remember. I have tried diets, starvation, working out and all the crazy drugs. Nothing has worked. I came to the point where I just decided that at the age of 35, I had a husband who loved me and a daughter that adored me, so what did it matter how big I was?

Well, at my check-up in January of 2008, I weighed in at 339lbs. At 5 foot 6, my BMI was 54.7 almost double the maximum for an average weight person. My doctor did some routine blood work to check my hormone levels. It came back that I had a severely elevated insulin levels. We always knew that my insulin was out of whack with my PCOS, but this was above and beyond what she expected. Dr. Cherry, my gynecologist, (I swear that is her real name) sat me down and explained what this meant in a way that no other doctor cared to take the time to do. She explained that the increased insulin levels were not only a precursor to type 2 diabetes, but they were a huge part of my recent weight gain. The more insulin in the body the more the body wanted to eat. The more I ate the more insulin I produced. I had to get serious about taking my metformin and eating better. She also prescribed Byetta, lizard spit injections that would help control my appetite and my insulin.

Fast forward to October 2008, I was sick of the shots, but willing to up the metformin. My insurance company refused to pay for me to go to Dr. Cherry, because she wasn't on their list. So, I started seeing a new OB/Gyn, who agreed to let me go off the Byetta and up the metformin. I also resolved to start eating better. I was still 339lbs, thus began my weight loss journey.

In March, I knew I had lost some weight, but did not have a scale to weigh myself at home. My sister had mentioned that she was going to do Weight Watchers. I had tried Weight Watchers in 2000 when I lived in Florida. Honestly, I had only done it for about 2 weeks, before falling back into my old habits of drive thru quickies and chocolate. At $12/week, Weight Watchers was "too expensive" for a single gal living in Orlando, I had reasoned. Truth be told, I spend five times that much on fast food.

I decided that if my sister, who had lost 120 lbs by changing her eating habits alone, admitted that she was willing to give WW's a go at it to help her lose her next 120 lbs, then maybe I should give it a go too. I pulled out my old books and decided that I would try to do it on my own. My husband told me that I would need a scale at home if I were serious, so I bought one the next day. My first time on the scale, I weighed in at 320lbs. For two weeks, I studied everything I could find on Weight Watchers and healthy eating. I counted my points and asked my sister a ton of questions. I lost 13lbs in 2 weeks. When my sister brought her WW's booklets to show me, I saw that she got little gold 5lb stars for each 5lbs that she lost. I wanted those stars. Sure, I could go out and buy a pack of gold stars, but it wouldn't be the same as earning them. I joined WW's the next week!