I have always been considered a big girl. I will never be a size two nor do I want to. I don’t feel the need to look like the women in magazines and on television to make me feel good about myself.
My goal is to be as healthy as I can be. My biggest struggle trying to loose weight is living with insulin resistance and thyroid problems better known as PCOS. Men as well as women can be insulin resistant. It is easier to find in women because PCOS affects fertility, but it is far from “just an infertility problem” as I have heard it so often called. Unlike insulin dependant or better known as diabetics, being insulin resistant doesn’t affect my sugar levels. I can eat whatever I want and not have to worry about my sugar going up. What I do have to worry about is my weight going up. I can gain and loose about 1 pound a day according to what I eat.
I try to exercise and eat right but I am human and succumb to temptation like everyone else. I use to think that because I had made poor food choices at one meal that my diet was all over and I would just quit. Over the years I have had many friends say they felt the same way. It took me a while to change my way of thinking.
Now when I make a poor food choice at one meal I simply start again at my next meal. I started realizing the causes of my poor food choices. The number one problem I had was not thinking ahead about where I was going to be eating or planning meals in advance. When we would go out to eat I would focus on what I shouldn’t be eating instead of all the things I could eat and that was exactly what I would want to eat. When going out to eat I look at the menu online and figure out what I want to eat in advance.
When I first found the doctor that diagnosed me as insulin resistant at 27 years old, I weighed 245 pounds, size 20-22. I am one of the lucky people because I only weighed 245 pounds when I was diagnosed. Many people weigh much more than that when they are diagnosed. I had always tried to eat right and exercise but I could not loose weight. I continued to gradually gain weight.
Upon diagnosis I started taking Metformin and Synthroid and told to avoid as many carbohydrates as possible. The first month I lost 28 pounds. With 4 months I had lost 75 pounds. I felt like I was melting. My clothes swallowed me. I got down to a size 10 and about 170 pounds.
I lost weight at such a rapid rate people that I had known for years would not see me for 2-3 weeks at a time would not know me when they would see me again. My will power slowly began to wane. I got so sick of eating nothing but meat, eggs, cheese and greens that I slowly began allowing myself to have a few things I shouldn’t have. My weight slowly began to creep back up.
When I got pregnant with my sweet little girl I was at 190 pounds. Two weeks after I had her I weighed in and was at 172 pounds! Staying home and taking care of my sweet girl I let myself go.
I hadn’t weighed in a while and I had to go to the doctor in December 2010. When I got on the scales I was a whopping 208 pounds. That was a slap in the face. I had to stop and evaluate what I was doing. I didn’t want to go back to being what I was. What kind of example was being for my sweet girl? I decided then that I was going to do better not only for me but for her too. I wanted her seeing me making good food choices so that she would grow up and make good food choices too. What was even better, my husband also decided to start making better food choices.
Rather than going on a “diet” I decided to change my diet for good. I make healthier food choices at each meal and snack time. I think and plan ahead about what I am going to eat. I take walks with my sweet girl to pick flowers, push her in her car, or pull her in her wagon before it gets too hot in the day. I try to go again of the evenings. I shut off the technology often, sometimes as much as a month at a time.
Since December I have lost 24 pounds and I am in a size 12-14 again. I know I can still do better. All of this takes time. I will continue to loose weight by making good food choices one meal at a time and exercising as I can.
What is your “fat like me” story? What are your biggest struggles? How do you make progress?
Me about 2 months before I was diagnosed as insulin resistant.
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