Let's Get This Party Started

Today, I decided after much encouragement from my oldest son to blog about my journey to make significant changes in my life. I actually started this journey in July 2010, when I stepped on the scale and was FLOORED to see my weight had hit the maximum of 265. Now, I'm (as they say in the South) a big ole strapping girl. At 5'8 my ideal weight is 165 and the last time I saw that number I was a senior in high school 29 years ago.

Growing up, food was always my comfort. I could eat when I was happy, sad, mad, upset, moody and it never failed me. I made lots of bad choices with foods late night snacking on really fatty foods and just binging to stuff down my emotions in life. In my twenties, I began making another bad choice - bingeing. I had had my first child and gained 50 lbs and for the first time in my life, I was miserable with a child I wasn't sure how to raise, married for the wrong reason and carrying 35 of the 50 lbs I had gained. After a year of my pretending it would fall off of me, I made the bad decision to stick my finger down my throat and vomit up the food I had binged on that evening. When it came up so easily - I was hooked. During this time, I also realized that I wasn't going to stay married to my son's father and started making other bad choices and tried finding love in all the wrong places. I was looking for a way out of that nightmare and instead of going back to school and improving myself I made a very bad lifestyle change ~ going from the frying pan to the fire or so to speak and jumping back into another bad relationship. I lost 35 lbs and felt good but realistically at 178, I was still overweight. The route that I used to lose the weight with bulimia and no exercise started a battle that I struggled with the rest of my adult life.

Fast forward 12 years, another bad marriage and no means to really support me and my two boys I made the decision to move away from my hometown and take a much better paying job and start a new life. I was divorced and moved to another city and had met a wonderful supportive man who loved me for me. As happy as I was, I couldn't ever be truly happy because I was still overweight and out of shape but life has a funny way of bringing things to a standstill and together he and I raised 5 children between us to adulthood. Dealing with his ex-wife continuously and with my ex-husband occasionally, and teenagers and teenager problems I fought daily with my addiction to food and my occasional bulimia issues. I hid the bulimia from my husband for a while and then finally one day - confessed it to him. It was like I was being released from a prison. I am however; realistic when I say that although I told my husband about it - I still had moments of weakness and binged/purged.

Today, I sit here at almost 47 years old, 250 lbs. and for the first time in my adult life feeling like I can finally overcome this weight problem and get back into shape and stay focused on it. I am doing WW and after a recent back problem that needed a specialist, I have been released to start exercising regularly. I've had to learn to respect my back problem but also learn to exercise around it and train smart. I'm now training for a 5K with my son who is a former Marine battling PTSD from his time in Iraq. He is a runner so I feel like I'm in good hands but I also signed up for a free program through a twitter friend "5K in 100 days". We are planning on running the 5K in the fall.

Currently, I am walking and running 2 miles/3days wk and I can run up to 3/10 of a mile. Nothing can express the surprise that I had when at the beginning of this week, I ran the first 1/10 and felt my old runner self coming back up to the surface. As someone who had run in her youth 2 miles a day, it was almost like getting back on a bicycle after all these years. As I ran the second 1/10 on Monday of this week a surge of confidence came over me that I had not felt in a long, long time. Last night when we were at the YMCA, I walked a little, and then completed (3) 1/10 laps = 3/10 of a mile. Although they were not consecutive laps, I still feel strongly that soon I will be doing those laps consistently.  On the off days, we are walking in the neighborhood where there is a killer hill. I say killer because until this week, I couldn't climb it while talking or being VERY winded afterwards. That all changed on Tuesday when my son taught me some cadences to overcome obstacles in my training. Some of them aren't family friendly but one I can say "Up the hill, f*ck the hill" over and over in my head and it gets me through that darn hill as I build up my endurance. I think I surprised my son with my little running skills and he even told me he was proud of me and that I had good form. Another boost of confidence for me and an unbelievable surge of energy. I haven't felt this good after a workout in YEARS so to me, running is going to get me through this journey.

I will be blogging my successes and my downfalls during this journey. I will be reporting on my progress to achieve my dream of running a 5K and I will be posting things about life and healthy recipes and anything interesting that this journey brings along.  Until then I'll be training smart and living life to the fullest as I make these changes for me.