After all, the beginning is a very good place to start.
October 2010... Standing on the scale at the Slim-4-Life office at my initial consultation meeting, it registered 246 pounds. The woman taking down my information smiled at me very kindly and said, "You wear your weight well, I never would have guessed you weighed that much." I've gone back and forth in my mind around her statement. At the time, it felt like a compliment. I think I still feel that way, but nevertheless, it stings a bit now. At 6' tall, that number put me into a size 18 pants and an XXL shirt. I was nearing my 29th birthday and knew I was staring at over 250 pounds in my 30s if something didn't change. That's what brought me to this office in the first place. Several of my coworkers had joined this particular weight loss program and seen significant drops. On my own, I had lost and gained almost 60 pounds in unhealthy ways for the last 10 years and enough was enough.
January 2011... Our house burns to the ground. Total loss. Out the door at 11:30pm at night with pajamas I had on, wrapped in my husbands wool pea coat, clutching my purse that was by the front door. Memories of that night still make my heart race and my head spin. I watched everything I own burn to blackness and I was powerless. With a wind chill in the single digits and water freezing before it hit the house, the fire blazed for hours until we could finally watch no more. I remember only bits and pieces of the following weeks. Standing in Target while my best friends picked out some clothing for me, diving into comfort food only to find no comfort, picking up the pieces of my sanity...
It would seem that weight loss would be the furthest thing from my mind, but something happened to me that I didn't expect. Freedom. Freedom from a closet with 3 different sizes. Freedom from years of accumulated clutter and a pantry full of unhealthy foods. Freedom from debt. Despite the pain and total disruption that the fire caused, I felt a sense of awakening I can hardly describe. "Things" didn't matter anymore. "Stuff" was unimportant. My health, my physical body... it was all that I had and all I could control. So I took the one thing I had left and I began to work on myself. Up to that point, I had lost about 15 pounds with Slim-4-Life, but quit after only 2 months due to the cost of the supplements and rigidity of the program (the program works for many, just didn't for me). I rejoined Weight Watchers online and faithfully tracked my meals. I started cooking real meals with fresh ingredients. I rejected prepackaged foods and never skipped a meal. My husband and I also started to do Tony Horton's Power90 together 5-6 times per week. The strangest thing happened. It worked. I think I half expected it not to work, but slowly, ever so slowly, the pounds began to come off. I lost inches and suddenly, I was in a size 16 before I knew it. And then a size 14.
I maintained a 30-40 pound weight loss from July 2011 through June 2012 and it felt good to maintain a comfortable weight loss for an entire year. It gave me confidence to know that my good habits were sticking. If I saw the numbers creep up a bit, I would work out more and be more diligent with my healthy eating. I also discovered that muscle tone kept my weight and shape where I wanted it to be. But...I wanted more. I wanted to see what I was capable of because I had achieved more than I expected, but I still had this number in my head. 175. 175 is the top healthy number on the height/weight chart for a 6' tall, large frame female. I passed 175 somewhere in middle school when I was growing several inches at time in a very short amount of years. My lowest weight in high school was 185 and it wasn't a toned physique. I knew I could do more if only I had the right fitness program.
Enter stage left... the right fitness program, Tony Horton's P90x. Weight Watchers Online fits my nutrition needs flawlessly. I have flexibility to cook and add variety to my days, but I have a consistent and easy to follow points system that I can live with. I just didn't have a fitness program that had variety and pushed me hard enough. I had been completely intimidated by P90x for years after reading reviews and hearing people complain about how hard it was. Years ago, I tore my ACL in my right knee and after several surgeries, they finally decided to just remove it. I kept thinking "I just can't do something this strenuous, right?" but my curiosity was killing me. After all, I did Power90 and I survived and thrived. So one afternoon, I put the P90x kit in my Amazon shopping cart, clicked "Checkout" and prayed it was the right thing to do.
The first 30 days, I thought I was going to give out. I was sure that my back / knees / ankles / abs were going to erupt and I would never be able to exercise again. OK, that's a bit dramatic, but seriously, P90x is HARD when you are not a very athletic or coordinated person. I lost 9 pounds and shed at least an inch over most of my major problem areas. Despite the discomfort and general grumbling about spending over an hour of my precious time working out almost every damn day, I kept going. By day 60, I was still sore every day, but I was starting to suck less at the workouts. I could finish most of them to completion even if I couldn't keep up with the people in the video.
On day 90, I'll admit, I felt like a rock star. I didn't have a perfect body, but I did have a body I had never seen before. I had lost another 8 pounds and even more inches, wearing a size 10/12. I had muscles I had never seen or was aware of before. For the first time in my adult life, I was looking forward to wearing a dress to a wedding I was attending. On my 31st birthday, I hit a personal goal of 190 pounds and I felt great, dare I say, attractive for the first time in a long time.
I still have pounds and inches to go, but I feel like I can see it for the first time. Out of the ashes of my previous life, a new woman has emerged. Someone who isn't doomed to be heavy and nonathletic her entire life. A woman who finally knows the difference between eating for nutrition and eating through pain. Will I run a marathon? Probably not. Will I put on a bathing suit that shows my previously unveiled stomach? I hope so. I hope I get to see who I can be and who I can maintain throughout the years. My goals are still in progress, but I have a tremendous hope that with the love and support of friends, family and the network of fitness enthusiasts around me, I can continue this transformation and be there for those who are walking the path with me.