More About My Weight Story...

Piggybacking off my earlier post about why I'm overweight, I thought I'd give you, my readers, some more background about my tumultuous relationship with my weight..

I'm only about 5' 3", on a good day. Most people don't realize this because I wear heels a lot, but that's besides the point. The point is that I'm short, I think I stopped growing around age 13 or 14, and I've been overweight most of my life. I can remember going to my yearly physicals and having the doctor mention my weight, blah blah blah. As I talked about before, there wasn't really anything I could do about it, so those comments petty much went in one ear and out the other. When I first got into my teen years, I think I was probably a women's size 14 or so, and pimply-faced to boot. I hovered around that size for YEARS, and definitely was not the most fit teenager around town. For me, being that size so young was definitely a difficult thing, but something I sort of just ignored. It was hard to find clothes, clothes that fit, that were parent approved - you know the deal...somewhere around age 16 or so, I went down to a women's size 10/12, depending on the brand, style, etc. I can remember being pretty excited about that size drop, although to this day, I'm still not sure how it happened (probably just normal hormones, for all I know). I was sort of able to hide how heavy I was just because of how my body was shaped; people wouldn't believe the weight I actually was because I looked slim and had a nice shape. I knew that I was overweight, but still wasn't really making much effort to lose it.

Here's the part where I'm going to be totally open - I'm going to tell you what my heaviest weight was...*deep breath* I believe that at my heaviest, I was at, or possibly above, 160 pounds. Now I realize that it's not crazy heavy, and I'm not trying to put down anyone who weighed/weighs more than that, this transparency is simply for my own weight loss process. I know for a fact that I weighed 160 pounds when I was 20, but I'm pretty sure I was heavier prior to that. This whole process has not exactly been a science...

In the past three years, with much fluctuation, I have gotten down to a size 6 (dress pants are sometimes a size 4 depending on the brand, everything else usually is a size 6), and medium shirt size. My weight is currently between 142 and 143 pounds, which is the lowest I have ever documented. It's a definite improvement, but I'm still trying/hoping to lose another 10 pounds or so. I don't want to be a stick figure, but weight loss is a good thing to strive for. I'm at the gym three to four times a week for at least an hour each time, helping myself get into shape and feel more energized. I do a lot of walking and biking at the gym (low impact stuff, because I have a bum knee), and have recently started Zumba classes (which you may already know about). I am taking the stairs at work too, even though I hate it :-)  I know I'm going to need to continue these things in order to keep my weight consistent, and that's one of the things I'm impressing into my brain. I can't just lose the weight and then expect it to stay off with no effort...for the rest of my life, I will have to watch how much I eat and make sure I get enough exercise. Weight loss/maintenance is a lifelong commitment...

And that's where I'm at... (more to come)