Mental, Emotional, Spiritual, Physical Interconnectivity

I have slowly had to change mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and physically. I can look back and see that all of those branches were involved in making me hidden, broken, fat, self-loathing, etc. To be a healthy person (not just having a healthy body - remember this is NOT just physical), I had to believe like a healthy person, think like a healthy person, feel like a healthy person, and behave like a healthy person. For me, this is what that looks like:

Believe like a healthy person:

Believe that you are special and loved and worth more than all the money on earth. Believe that you are irreplaceable and infinitely valuable to every person on earth, you have something to contribute, you have talents and abilities that are for a purpose. You owe it to yourself to be your best self and you owe it to all who watch you to inspire them.

Think and Feel like a healthy person:

Mental and emotional are hard for me to separate so I'm going to explain them together. You have to nurture your own small child that lives within you. When you nurture that child you speak to yourself differently. Often people aren't aware of what they say to themselves because it's so second nature we sometimes don't even recognize it as a voice but merely a thought. Think of it as a voice! You can change what you say! When you mess up, what do you say? Do you say "Oh I'm such an idiot" or anything along those lines? Those words are damaging your mental and emotional self! You must nurture inner child. When you mess up, forgive yourself. When you are sad, take the time to feel what you feel and know that your feelings are important and worth the time you spend on yourself. When you are angry, take the time to feel it all the way through and don't turn it on yourself, you are angry at something and you are allowed to feel it!

To think and feel like a healthy person you must walk around with the knowledge that you deserve peace, time, and tranquility. You deserve to process at your own speed, and to take care of your own needs first. When you are having negative thoughts or feelings, don't stuff them inside because you don't have time for that now. Give yourself that time because you need it! Others will have to wait. the more you practice the more efficiently you'll be able to handle this but at first you'll just have to demand time from yourself.

Be connected spiritually like a healthy person:

This is similar to mental and emotional. I touched on what you owe to the world to take care of you. That stems from this spiritual health standpoint. Whether you believe in God or any Higher Power or not, most can feel that they are connected to the world in some way. All people have a connectivity and we have a connectivity with all of life which stretches to the earth and the stars. Every affects us and we in turn affect everything. If there were a building full of people would you want to release a poison into that air? If so, seek immediate psychological help. But assuming you'd say, "Of course not"! Think of yourself, your person, your energy as something you release into the air. You affect people, the atmosphere, and nature positively or negatively. Smiles are contagious, positivity and good, strong energy are contagious. Negativity, laziness, and anger are contagious too. So what are you releasing into the air? Are you healthy for human consumption? Or are you poison? Whether you think people are watching you or not, they are! If you become your healthiest self, you WILL inspire others and you WILL see a change in the people who come into your life and you WILL see people leave your life. You will have changed the structure of your space by changing your health.

Behave like a healthy person:

Healthy people don't eat to the point of sickness. Healthy people know ahead of time what amount is proper for their goals. They have "body goals" and don't live aimlessly or guided by how they feel. They plan ahead and know what is good for them because their bodies are important to them. We don't buy a phone, a computer, or a car without knowing what it can do, what it needs, and how to take care of it and you certainly shouldn't own your body without knowing these things too. Healthy people do the research and learn what their body needs.

Healthy people don't eat food that has been covered in flour or bread and soaked in oil. They choose foods that LOOK like a picture of the foods they are eating. Rather than coming to that food at the end of it's processing, they are part of the process of taking that food from it's natural state to the plate. Be a part of that food getting into your body. Experience the look, feel, smell, and taste of it. You are not putting food in your mouth for any other reason than to fuel the body that you love and that requires care!

Healthy people don't eat plates full of browns, whites, and yellows. They eat plates full of colors and textures. Eating is an experience that brings you to life not an experience that is numbing you to existing. Think about the care you put into your car, cell phone, or computer. You likely put fuel in your car, change your oil, keep it tuned up, keep it working in proper order for safety, right? You likely buy a case for your phone, you don't set it down on bathroom floors or other nasty places, you probably give it a wipe down and keep it clean and safe, right? You likely keep your computer updated, have a virus protection program, and take care to not break it, right? But too many people don't even treat their own bodies this way.

Fuel your body properly, give it all the nutrients it needs, move your body, get sun and oxygen and water, see the doctor for checkups, take your vitamins, eat your vegetables, keep yourself in good working order, taking care of your body is your insurance policy for your future. It doesn't mean you won't get sick or get a disease/illness, or die. But it will make you strong enough to fight a disease/illness and it will make getting to your last days full of more good feelings than bad ones.

Not out of the woods yet

The weight loss was going great. My strength and flexibility were improving. I was challenging myself and growing my skill set. I was very happy with the physical stuff but what crept in from the recesses of my mind was my fear of an impending depression that I was sure would come. I could always figure out how to lose weight but I could never figure out how to keep it off - obviously since here I was again losing weight. Every time I'd lost weight in the past I would get to this plateau and "something would happen" that I never could pinpoint. This "thing" would then cause me to become pissed off at myself and in anger I'd punish myself for screwing up and then I'd eat crap and gain weight. If I could just figure out the "thing" that caused this, I could do something different?

I had this eating and exercising thing down and I knew nothing but my fears could stop me now. I needed to address this. How could I keep this depression that always came away. Was I clinically broken, did I need medication, was I bi-polar, was I depressed, what was wrong with me?

Somewhere along the way my eyes were opened to what part of the problem was. I stepped back and looked at my pattern from afar. I'd lose weight, become proud of myself, then I'd make a mistake and be so mad at myself for failing (because a mistake meant failure) that I'd punish me/love me with pleasurable food. The punishment was that I created a cycle of self-loathing to "show me" what a loser I was. The love part was that I thought I was soothing myself by giving into my desires for pleasure through food. WOW....what the hell!

I thought of my sweet 7 year old son who was a mini-perfectionist like his mom and I'd watched him be hard on himself and cry when he made a mistake and it broke my little heart. I'd grab him up and hug him and say "Sweetheart, it's just a mistake and those can be fixed. Everyone makes mistakes cause nobody is perfect...except Jesus....and we aren't Jesus". I'd then help him try to fix the mistake and all would be better. WHAT DID I JUST SAY? Hold up. WHAT DID I JUST SAY? What would happen if when I made a mistake, I grabbed myself up, wrapped my arms around myself and felt a mother's broken heart at the little girl inside me that was so destroyed by a mistake and I told that little girl, "Sweetheart, it's just a mistake and those can be fixed. Everyone makes mistakes cause nobody is perfect...except Jesus....and we aren't Jesus". If I fixed the mistake, what would that look like?

This process seemed silly to me...to be my own mom to my own little girl inside me and hug myself and tell myself that it was ok. I would allow both parts of me to exist...the little girl who felt the world would end because of a mistake that was surely unfixable and the mom who knew the world wouldn't end and that mistakes can be fixed. But it wasn't good enough to simple KNOW this...I had to go through the process of the mom in me telling the girl in me. I needed to show myself that gentleness and love.

When I did this, I realized that that depression wasn't going to come. That "something would happen" wasn't scary because nothing was unfixable. I didn't have to be that scared little girl who didn't know how to fix the mistake. I was a mom who could figure out how to fix things and could take care of the little girl. Just like my son could trust me and count on me and was never alone because I'd protect him and help him and love him and always be there for him....I could trust me and count on me and was never alone because I could protect myself and help myself and love myself and always be there for myself.

AHA! THAT was God's lesson. THAT was why I had to do this myself. Because in the end it's ME who has to take care of ME! I can't wait for someone else to love me. HE loved me, HE loves me, I love me, HE put HIM into me and can love me through me. It was all in ME.

I found it!

For years I had been an infomercial watcher/buyer. It was a weakness I had. I had owned so many boxed weight loss programs I could open a store. I had used very few of them. By the time the 6 - 8 weeks came around and I actually owned said program I was not motivated to try it.

This time was different. 

I had purchased the 21 Day Fix from beachbody. I had used beachbody programs in the past and they always really pumped me up but this one really focused on the eating part which was where my big problem was. The previous programs I'd tried focused on the workout and the eating plan seemed like this 'oh ya, read the book to see how to eat healthy' afterthought. So I didn't read the books, I did the workouts, until I quit from not seeing results because I overate my workouts. (Yes you CAN ruin what you do in the gym in the kitchen). 

This time was different.

The book was small - ok, that's not intimidating. I had seen the infomercial a hundred times so I already kind of knew what it was about. I flipped through the pages and the eating plan wasn't a stupid crazy plan where I had to eat 8 beets, 12 tomatoes, and a head of cabbage a day either. So...hmm....maybe I could do this. It was only 21 days. I could do anything for 21 days and if I really gave it 100% of my effort it's either going to help me stop this train wreck or ....well, I had nothing to lose. Since I have to do this alone and there was no scheduling problem or distance to drive, there was simply deciding that I wanted it. 

This time WAS different! 

I started by simply following the eating plan. I hated working out and in the past I had always fallen into this weird pit of working out = need to eat more cause I'm starving all the time. But so far I couldn't even eat all the food that I was supposed to eat each day and I felt like I had it down so....I needed to add the workouts. The workouts were hard and I knew I had a LOT of room for improvement. I couldn't even do what the modifier girl did. I was tired and sweaty from the 2 minute warm-up and I couldn't even do the full jumping jacks. I liked the fact that when I followed this eating plan I had enough energy each day to do the workouts which means it took less "willpower" of which I had none. I just followed the plan -- day after day -- I started an online group and posted how I was doing, asked others if they wanted to join me (crickets for a while) and just kept following the program. This wouldn't stop me though. The workouts weren't sabotaging my eating which was awesome! It did make it so that I ate all the food that was called for in a day. 

By week 2 I realized that this was working! I wasn't overeating, I wasn't lacking energy and dragging my tired butt upstairs to workout, I actually was seeing myself being able to do more and more, I was getting stronger, I had better balance, this was working!!! It's like this lady created a program that when you actually just do what she says you get what she says you'll get - Wow, what a novel concept! 

By week 3 (the end of 21 days) I had lost 11 lbs and my clothes were fitting better! I realized that I could do it. I was doing it! This isn't difficult....I found the recipe. Over the course of a few rounds I started keeping track of my measurements and I was seeing amazing results there too. For the first time in 20+ years I believed that I had this licked! I knew the recipe and if I followed it I would get the result because it was no longer a guessing game, it was a for sure win. Now it was up to me.

You have to do this alone

 I had to stop this train wreck. I couldn't go down this path again. I remember all the times in the past that I wished I would have been able to stop my upward gains and come back down. I knew logically that it would be much better to start losing weight weighing 200 than waiting until I got to 250. Just start now! What are you waiting for? 

I really started questioning myself. I started really looking at my behavior and I gave words to it....like self-talk but in a mentor/mentee type way instead of just bashing myself. "What are you doing? You are putting death into your body, hurting yourself, killing yourself with food AGAIN. You think it's giving your pleasure but that is the biggest lie you've ever believed. It's tricking you! You feeeeel pleasure on your tongue but it's killing you. It's leading you to diabetes, heart disease, discomfort at the very least, and self-punishment. It makes you hate you. Why do you want to hate you?" I learned many years ago that you can't believe people's WORDS you have to believe their ACTIONS. Anyone can say words and big woopty-doo-da, those take no energy. But when someone is DOING something then you know what they believe, what they are about, who they are. For years my words said "I hate being fat, look at my ugly body, I can't do it, I am such an idiot" and my actions said "I like being fat, I can't do it, I'm hiding". But I don't agree with that! The only way to tell the world that I didn't like being fat was to stop it. I was believing in the pleasure food gave me and ignoring the results of that pleasure. It came down to this: every choice has a consequence - if I choose pleasure in the mouth, I am saying that that pleasure is more important than everything I thought I wanted with thinness. But what if I changed that choice, what would I be saying then? If I changed the script in my head and instead chose pleasure in my clothes, activity and energy in my body, strength in my movements and forgot about my mouth then the consequence would be different. 

For years I chose what it took to be heavy! Now I have to choose what it takes every day to be thin! 

So I set out to find "help". Join a program, join a gym, find a class, let's stop this train wreck! I want to choose better. 

~ if you do what you've always done, you'll have what you've always had ~ 

For a few months I would find a class and it either wouldn't work into a schedule, it was way too far to drive, or I started a class and the instructor quit, I found a friend and the friend wasn't as motivated as me. I kept getting "messages" that I am alone! No one is going to help me! No one is going to join along side me and prop me up when I'm weak! This is on you! If you want it, prove it! Stop using others as an "excuse" to not get what you want! Prove it! You can't just say it, you have to do it! 

I fought this for a couple weeks, like a whiny child that is being to clean a room that is far too messy to clean by himself. But just like that whiny child, if he'd just use his time to start picking up one toy at a time, in a few minutes he'd have a lot less toys to clean up. 

Stop whining because you are only wasting your own time!!!

My mind started to change. Since I had been putting all my feelings into words, saying them out loud, changing my self-talk, asking myself questions, daring myself to put up or shut up, forcing myself to decide what I REALLY wanted by my actions, I was changing my mind. When you change your thoughts your behavior will follow and it works in reverse too...when you change your behavior your thoughts will follow. You really can't lose when you change! 

So I made up my mind. "Ok God - you say I am on my own - my husband can't help me, my friends can't help me, my trainer can't help me, I HAVE TO HELP ME - Ok.....FINE"! And in a very angry and defiant way I just accepted that message as the truth! 

No more excuses! If my husband chooses to eat crap, that doesn't mean I have to choose that. If my friends don't have the will to change yet, I don't have to give up my will. I am alone. I am my own person. Would I rather be fat with a group of folks or thin and alone. When it comes down to it, I'd choose skinny and alone because I'd gotten to a point where I was so sick of fighting this battle that I just wanted to stop fighting it! I knew that the likeliness of being thin and being alone was pretty scarce so I just needed to decide to LIVE like I wanted to LIVE - like a thin person.

Internal Storm Brewing

Inside me I felt uneasy. This couldn't be IT. I couldn't sustain this dragging every day. I had come so far but still had so far to go, right? I weighed about 180 at this time which was great! Don't get me wrong. This was the thinnest I had been in YEARS and so maybe I should just be happy about this? Ok...that was my new goal....I'm going to be happy as a size 14, 180 lbs woman because this was FAR BETTER than being a size 22/24, 256 lbs woman!!!!

I had heard Oprah, years ago say that there was a weight that your body would be comfortable at and would gravitate to. Maybe this was my "comfortable weight"? Maybe this was as good as it could get with all the fat cells that I had made over the years. I had visions of empty fat cells and filled up fat cells. I had pictures of fat blobs compared to muscle blobs. All the information about the body that I gathered over the years. I just tossed all the info into my brain and would try to make sense of it all.

All those skinny fit women in videos must have just been born that way. Well not me. I was German and Italian and there are some portly women from those places. I guess I couldn't fight my genetics?
It settled then, I will be happy at 180.

By this time I had given up processed food about 90% of the time, I questioned what was in everything I ate (not necessarily how it was prepared, just that it came from a natural, good source with no poisons), I was active now and so I could fudge a little hear and there and I'd work it off. This is what living life looks like....people don't count and track every single thing, I didn't want to be so obsessed. Well I ignored the scale for months and months, I didn't want to be a slave to that thing either, and ya my clothes were getting a little tighter but hey it was winter so maybe I was packing it on a little thicker. No biggie...at least I was still squeezing into a size 14....well I guess 16's were more comfortable and didn't give me as large of a muffin top hanging over my pants. Still better than 22/24!

The weather was changing and spring was in the air and I wanted to more comfortably fit into my 14's again. I got out that scale and WHAT???? I had gained 20 lbs on the dot. At my lowest I had gotten down to 178.8 and on this day I weighed 198.8 lbs! Holy shit! That is almost 200 again! Not again, not again, what is wrong with me? How did I let this happen?

I had to take a real honest look at what I DID to get here. Yes, I had stopped eating processed food, I had been not being as active as I was last year since we moved and I got busy and well....ok, I stopped exercising. But I hate exercising! I loved cheeseburgers too. That is a big problem. I was eating only grass fed beef though. But I was also adding the fries again (and the ranch sauce). Ok...I was back to eating like crap. But I don't want to track my food! This is such crap! Why can't I just be "one of those girls" that can just eat shit and not be fat?

I was basically falling into every thinking fallacy that I could have. I was thinking that "I was cured from the disease of fat"; "Why can't I be one of those girls who is naturally not obese"; "I'm eating no more poisons and toxins so that should equal healthy", "Eating healthy means having a nice body". Wrong, wrong, wrong.

Desperate and stumbled upon exercise?

My wake up call made me know that I needed to do something desperately and stop this messing around. I didn't have another 20 years to try and emotionally figure out what I was doing wrong. So I went to a doctor to get gastric bypass surgery. My insurance required a bunch of tests that basically took a year to complete. I guess they want you to want it bad enough to stick with the goal through a year's worth of hoops to jump through. Well I was glad for this eventually but not yet.

I did the swallow test, some barium swallowing thing, a psych eval, a sleep study, visited my doctor X number of times in X months with chart notes all talking about my weight problem. Then the last step was to lose 5% of my weight and then my insurance would approve my surgery. I accidentally lost 12% of my weight. This caused my insurance to deny my request because by their standards apparently I can lose the weight. Well I knew I could lose 50 lbs pretty easily...I had done it many times in 20 years....my problem was losing more than that and then keeping it off. I was looking for the final motivation to make it to my goal and pain is a great motivator for me. I figured after gastric bypass you get sick if you eat the wrong foods and that sickness would cause me to not even try to get away with it cause I hate pain and sickness. Now I had a choice to make. Gain 20 lbs back or try to lose the weight this one last time on my own. Since I had already lost 30 lbs I was feeling pretty motivated and so I went for it. Hallelujah, thank God I decided that.

This little tiny voice inside me would argue the logic of my desire for gastric bypass. It would say, "If you are willing to make this lifelong commitment with this surgery that will forever change the way your body works and will forever change what you should be putting into it, why not just commit to yourself to eat differently without altering your body"? Yes, I would argue with the little voice - "I can't do it obviously or else I would have already. I can alter my eating for a while then something happens and I can't anymore....THAT is what I need to figure out".

I found this great little "bootcamp" run by a couple women in my town where they would work your butt off and it was a fun little group. It helped me to show up for a "social hour" of sorts and I could compete with the other girls (yes, competition is a big motivator for me too). Their bootcamps would run in 6 week cycles and over the course of 3 cycles I actually saw through the fitness tests and through the daily moves that I was getting stronger. I remember the night I was taking a shower and I slipped a little bit and caught myself easily without using my hands. It dawned on me that I wasn't afraid of falling in the shower anymore! I had a strong enough core to just stabilize myself! Wow, I was strong! Well this planted a little seed inside me because I loved being strong and able. I couldn't believe that I was but I loved it!

The part of this bootcamp that was frustrating for me was that there wasn't any real guidance with eating. I had a natural compass that said "You are working your butt off each week, you're not putting crap in your body"! But aside from that, I was choosing what to eat based on my personal desire....standing in front of the fridge and asking myself, "Hmmm, what do I want". I was tracking my food on a website that tallied up your calorie intake and broke it down into fat, protein, carbs and would track your sugar and vitamins if you wanted it to. That was helpful but still not really providing guidance. It had a calculation where you told it your goals and how active you are and it would spit out a number of calories you should be striving for each day. That was great but still....that's not really guidance. What frustrated me was that some days I'd have enough energy to work out but some days I wouldn't. I was drinking a little "energy booster" drink before working out to get me all pumped up but even then I'd feel a crash during the class and have to use my "willpower" to get through. There was that feeling again - I hate working out - I hate having to rely on my thinking to make me do this thing that I didn't feel good doing. I liked the result of doing it...the getting stronger part...so I guess I'd just have to focus on that (more mental weight loss which always fails). The other problem I was having was that I wasn't seeing consistent results either on a scale or with a tape measure. I saw some results but not consistently. Nothing that told me that I WILL reach my goal, this is the formula to do it, and this is about how long it will take you. If I had that, I would know that what I was doing was the right thing! You know? It's like I needed validation that what I was doing worked for my body and hypothyroidism didn't matter. I mean heck, I take my meds everyday and my blood levels were stable so that means I SHOULD be able to do this, right?

Oh well...what could I do? I guess I'd have to read and read and ask and keeping seeking the right answers to my questions: How do I know if I'm eating the right things? How do I know if this is the right calorie intake? I hear that when you workout this intensely you should eat more calories? Am I undereating? What am I doing wrong that I'm not getting consistent results?

Oh well, I guess I'd just have to sustain this mental pushing and dragging my butt to the bootcamps because at least I was headed in the right direction and my heart was healthier, right? There was that :/

Life Changing Events and a Wake Up Call

My husband was deployed to Afghanistan in 2009. I was to hold down the fort and raise our little toddler alone while he went to combat. I didn't know what he was doing there, everything was very hush-hush. When he came home our life turned completely upside down and the smart, capable, bread-winner, protector, best friend, husband that left for Afghanistan wasn't who came home. His limbs were all there but his brain, his personality, and his physical abilities were all different. I became the caregiver and advocate for my disabled husband would now function more like an elderly dementia patient. We had no money, no help, no information, no guidance, and no support. I was given a broken husband and expected to move on with life.

I write a blog about my husband, his experience, and our experience together but this one won't focus on all that. I'll skip ahead to say that what it took to get the care my husband needed and the benefits my husband had earned by sacrificing his future took every ounce of my being. I work great under pressure, I am a tenacious fighter for justice, and I can ignore my own needs better than anyone I know! And so I took a back seat and my husband and family became first!

During this journey, I came to the realization that if anything were to happen to me, my husband would have to be placed in a home or die. My didn't know what would happen to our little boy. The outlook was a horrible one and all that had to happen was for me to get cancer, diabetes, a heart attack, or God forbid some unforeseen accident. While I have no control over accidents, I have some control over how healthy I am and what quality my body is in. For years of fighting for my husband's needs and putting myself on the back burner, I had gained all my weight back to the heaviest I'd been, 256 lbs. Worse than that number, my advocating work was all done by computer and phone while sitting on my big, growing butt. I was 40 years old and my body was hurting from lack of care, complete neglect of every aspect of it, and basically I was just slowly killing myself.

When I realized that I couldn't do this to myself anymore, it was not fair to my husband or my children. Here I was selflessly giving all of me to everyone I loved but to myself I was being completely selfish. I really wasn't thinking of them at all because I was just helping my body become a diseased, broken, dying body even sooner than it needed to be. This was my wake up call!

Guessing games and yo-yo's

I remember watching Oprah for years and hearing her talk about having to learn the underlying reason for the weight. And I'm an intelligent woman who was pretty self-aware and I really could just never figure it out?

Some of my theories were that I was a food addict. That made sense. I would crave things and then just had to have them. If I tried to withhold that food from myself I could for a while but inevitably I would have to indulge myself in that desire. I did not understand my cravings and why they were so strong. I felt like I was in a constant battle with myself.

Another theory was that I had too big of a problem with inconsistency. Maybe if I learned to follow a routine better I wouldn't do things like wait 4 hours to eat in the morning or skip meals or consider that when I ate little to nothing I was being "good" but then I'd gorge out on some giant meal because I was starving and then I was "bad".

Maybe I lacked willpower or sense of time or knowledge of what to do. I lacked something but what?

Maybe my body was so messed up from years of gaining and losing and gaining and losing that now it didn't know what to do? Maybe I had created so many fat cells that they would always just gravitate toward being filled up (which means fat). Maybe I should just learn to love my largeness (but I didn't at all!).

I would find a diet that worked (most of them actually do work as long as you follow them) and follow the program which meant some type of deprivation until I got to a point where I could wear cute clothes. For me this was somewhere in the 190 to 200 lbs range. This was way better than the 250 lbs range that I would bounce back up to. That was an accomplishment....50 or 60 lbs! So I'd be happy with myself. But ultimately I couldn't stick with the deprivation forever and so I'd slowly make exceptions until I was back up to 250. It seems that magic number would cause such disappoint in myself that it would motivate me to try something else. Maybe that's what was wrong, I lacked motivation?

Every time I could lose weight I was good. I felt good, proud of myself, enjoyed the attention and the "good job" comments. And then some thing would cause it all to unravel and I'd be sucked back into the blackhole of "screw it all" and "I can't do it". I lived this yo-yo for many years and could never understand what was wrong with me. The answer had to be out there.

Distraction and dieting

It's weird what happens to our eyes when we become obese. I didn't see it. I hated seeing pictures of me and don't have very many because of that. But when I'd look into the mirror I always thought, "I'm not THAT bad".

Taking my kids to those play places full of tubes and ball pits where plenty of parents put on the knee pads and joined their kids I certainly couldn't keep up with them but I was still blind. I became one of those parents that would take the kids to fun places and I'd sit and watch and thought "that's what parents do" but in retrospect I couldn't really have done anything else.

My goals became intellectual and not physical for a few years and I went to college, got my degree. I helped with the design and building of my house. I read self-help books about how to have a happy marriage. I dabbled in religions and tried to find the meaning of life. I was doing many, many thing to become a better person on the inside while the outside "wasn't that bad" and so I ignored it.

Over the years I started diets, joined clubs, watched infomercials and bought lots of products. I would attempt to do something about my weight but for whatever reason I was just never getting it. I tried the Beet Juice Diet, Eating for your Blood Type, Tony Little workouts, Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig, Atkins Diet, Ephedra pills, etc.

Finally in 2001, as I was losing my marriage, I went to the doctor desperate to get help. I found out that I had hypothyroidism which can make it hard or even impossible to lose weight if not controlled properly. That was my "Aha"! moment. THAT was the reason I was so fat! I had a "health problem" that made me fat (haha, ya right). What that diagnoses did was give me a valid excuse for having lost myself to food.