The Green Family

Today is a tough day for me, but I know this will help me. I am publicly coming out about my weight and I will be blogging weekly about my weight, exercise, diet, and the whole journey. It is embarrassing posting pictures and being honest about my weight, but it is another reason to stay on track and stay motivated.

I want to be healthy. Yes, I want to fit into “cute” clothes and look better, but my biggest motivation is my health. I am 100 pounds overweight. I am classified as obese. Wow. Those words sting and scare me more then you could imagine. I don’t want to die. I want to watch my kids grow up and watch my future grandchildren grow up. I want to live and fully enjoy life. I want to have more energy and be able to do the things I want to do but I am not physically able to do right now (like kayaking and multi-day hiking trips). I am ready to take control of myself and my body and get healthy and strong.

Naturally, I am tall and thin. In high school I ranged from 120-140 lbs at 5’9. I wore a size 5. I had my oldest daughter when I was 18 and everything went downhill with my eating and weight. I gained 120 lbs that pregnancy! With my second pregnancy, I gained 80 lbs! I would lose some weight then gain it back. I have been yo-yoing for 10 years now with my weight. Each time my weight climbs, I get depressed and give up. When I got pregnant with Juliet, I weighed 275 lbs. That pregnancy changed me. I ate better and started taking care of myself. I gained 5 lbs during the pregnancy until the last 2 days when I put on another 5 lbs of swelling for a total of 10 lbs. So, my weight when I delivered was 285. This was 5 months ago. I started working out and eating better after I had her but then I hurt my back again. I quit working out but still ate pretty well. I was losing weight and got down to 235 but then stress and a new learned skill of baking caused me to jump back up again. The last 2 months, my weight has been increasing from way too many cookies and crumb cakes.

So here I am…I weigh 248.5 pounds. Yikes. I am below my pre-pregnancy weight but it doesn’t matter to me. I am still hugely obese. I am still unhealthy and it is dangerous. I currently wear a size 20. My goal weight range is 140-150 lbs. My first goal is to get under 200 though.

My Plan – I will be tracking all my exercise and food on Spark People. I will eat between 1700-2150 calories a day. I will no longer be baking! I will exercise at least 5 days a week for at least 30 minutes. For exercise, I will be using Exercise TV on Demand (I love the variety), hiking, walking, workout videos, and I will be starting a slow but steady running program. I am in PE this quarter and I will be doing some of the classes she offers as well as learning more about diet and exercise. I do have some things that will add some challenges to my plan but it will not stop me. I am nursing Juliet so my calories can’t go too low. I also have an umbilical hernia and will be having surgery shortly to fix that. This will stop me from working out for a few weeks (but I will be watching my diet very closely!). I also have some back pain and I have to be careful of hurting myself.

So that is me. This is hard to talk about for me but I know it will be extra motivation. Please be kind! I will be blogging every Thursday with my weight and how my week went diet and exercise wise. Come join me!

**Pictures are of me today and my weight/BMI from Wii fit today. Please don't mind my terrible skin, I break out terribly from the hormone changes after having a baby.