When I was 18, I was 125lbs and believe it or not, compared to some of my friends at the time, I thought that I was big. When I look back at pictures, I can't believe the difference between then and now.
I guess it all started with the dreaded freshman 15 - I stayed four months in residence in my second year university - all you can eat fries and gravy and all you can drink chocolate milk! If it hadn't been residence, I'd have thought that it was heaven! Apparently the 10 minute hike to the Education Building three mornings a week did not balance everything out! That September I started living on my own in an apartment on campus and honestly, I didn't eat a lot of junk. Afterall, I was on a fixed income - Mom was footing that bill at the time. And meat was expensive.....I used that excuse a lot when I was looking for a few extra dollars from Mom and Dad. LOL.
Fast forward to my first year of pharmacy and I weighed in at 169lbs. At this point I lived on my own and the apartments that I lived in were always close to a convenience store. Oh to have one-quarter of the money I spent at Stockwoods back! I also had a car. A recipe for certain disaster! Sure I flirted with the gym on and off during my university career and into my professional career but it has always been mostly just that - flirtation at best. I have even invested in personal trainers but even they couldn't cement my resolve with the battle of the buldge.
I have always identified myself as an athlete. I played almost every sport imaginable growing up - tennis, volleyball, basketball, baseball, soccer, karate, etc, etc. And I was good at it; a natural athlete. When I played ball, I was the only girl asked to play on the all-star team and back then there were only a handful of girls playing baseball in Corner Brook. Even my personal trainers said that I had proper posture when lifting weights; they didn't have to show me. I naturally understood. This isn't to toot my own horn but only to impress upon the difference between then and now. The only sport that I am actively engaged in now is karate but it's hard to move your body through kata and avoid attacks in kumite when you are carrying around extra weight. I have a second degree black belt and I remember someone once telling me that I 'didn't look like a black belt'. I can only assume that this person thought that because I wasn't ripped like Bruce Lee or Chuck Norris. At 227 lbs, I still believe that there is an athlete in me; it's just hiding.
Sure I'd like to have a body like Pink (the singer) or Halle Berry, but, at 35 it is becoming less about looking good and more about feeling good and living healthy. I am a health care professional; I spend my days promoting wellness and disease prevention. However, I don't seem to take my own advice. Obesity is the number one cause of diabetes in our province and there are dozens of cancers that can trace their etiology to excess weight. The mortality and morbidity costs of excess weight are frightening! I wasn't asthmatic until I started putting on weight in university. I now find my right knee because my weight causes me to hyperextend at the knee and I have developed plantar fasciitis; partly because I stand at the pharmacy counter every day but the weight doesn't help. My mother says that she doesn't understand because I have so much knowledge.
So, why a blog? I am sure that some of you are asking that. Well, I guess it all comes back to accountability. Perhaps knowing that people are reading this and expecting change will encourage me to smarten up. I am not getting any younger and mom keeps telling me that I have to do it now because it gets harder as you get older. She lost over 70 pounds almost two years ago now using the Weight Watchers plan. She is living proof that it can be done; at any age. You just have to have the resolve to do it.
When I was 18, I never would have imagined that 18 years later, I'd be sitting on my couch, watching The Biggest Loser and blogging about my own struggle with weight loss. I was the baby whose grandmother was worried that I was too small when I was born and the kid who couldn't stand the sight of grizzle and fat on a pork chop or chicken breast. If I met that 18 year-old girl now, I'd give her some swift kick in the ass. I think that she would be shocked at the difference between then and now......
