One Year on MFP--Story & Pics

Well it’s been one year since I started this little journey. When I signed in a year ago, I had no idea what MFP was all about. That morning, I decided to keep track of what I was eating because I have always had a difficult time keeping weight off of my 5’3” “athletic” frame. Growing up, I was always muscular but because I was an athlete, I was never considered fat.

After being a college athlete (diver) for 4 years, I went to work, got married, and started having kids. 4 boys (and 4 c-sections later), I was 30 pounds over where I wanted to be. After my 4th was born, I remember being 172 AFTER my “baby weight” came off those first few weeks. Yikes! I discovered the South Beach Diet Plan and followed it diligently for about a year and a half and eventually got down to around 140. I felt great but couldn’t seem to keep my weight below 140 for the life of me. I started eating some of the things I had deprived myself of for that year and a half and slowly but surely, I started gaining weight back. Then this financial downturn happened (my husband was a builder and owned his own business), there was about a year and half when we didn’t even get a pay check. On top of that, my oldest son got extremely ill and that plus other normal stresses added even more weight.

By this point, I was 46 years old and I could hardly stand to look in the mirror. To make matters worse, I am married to a very handsome man who is 6’3” and has had 6 pack abs since the 5th grade! He is addicted to working out and just doesn’t understand why I struggle so much. The weight was stopping me from wanting to do anything social because I couldn’t find anything that looked even decent on me. When I couldn’t participate in many of the activities on vacation the summer of 2011 and finally in October, on that day I signed into MFP, I decided I’d had enough. I have to admit, I didn’t really think this would work though. Why would it? I had tried to do the SBD a half dozen times since that first successful time and failed every time. I’d tried my own diets and other people’s diets and if I was “good” for a day or two and the scale didn’t move, I quit. Why would this be any different?

Here is a picture from July, 2011--This was not quite my heaviest but it was close. I remember it being a really hot day, and I was hosting a grad party for my oldest son and 3 of his friends. It was 4th of July but I was in all black (though my shirt said "red, white, and blue on it) because I wanted to look as thin as possible. I barely fit in my XL shirt/skort.



A month later, I was on vacation at a family camp and someone snapped this picture of me. When I saw this, I cried.




I don’t really have a plan. I have tried to keep my calories around 1200-1400/day. If I exercise, I usually try to eat back some of those calories. The same day that I logged onto MFP that first time, I also decided to quit drinking Diet Coke. I haven't had one sip since! I am a working mom of 4 very busy boys so I honestly don’t get that much time to fit in exercise but I’ve slowly been losing weight all year. I lost the first 10 pounds fairly quickly (which kept me interested and motivated). The next 10 were much slower and frustrating but at the same time, I was still allowing myself to eat some crappy foods including pizza and sugar filled items here and there. I just made sure that they fit into my caloric allotment. Over the summer though, I started to see a few of the 20 pounds starting to creep back on so after our annual family trip in August, I got serious!

I began cutting the crap out of my diet….no more bread, rice, pasta (white). No sweets. More veggies like broccoli, green beans, and zucchini (those are the ones I like). More water—I got a big quart size water bottle and my goal is to drink no less than 3 of them a day (I just refill it at work). I’d like to say that I’m exercising like crazy but I'm really not. I still have a little ways to go and of course, I’d like to tone up this flabby body of mine. For now, I’m happy with the 34 pounds that I’ve lost. There are some people on here that have lost 3 times the amount of weight that I have in the same amount of time. I’m guessing they don’t have 4 kids to take care of, a full time job, a lot of leftover financial stress, a mother who has recently been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and the myriad of other stresses I have in my life. Or they might. Who knows? I’ve stopped trying to compare myself to everyone else and am focusing on what I can do today to make me feel better about myself. I would still like to lose another 20 pounds or so. Maybe even 25. I’m not in a rush though.

I know I couldn’t have done it without this website. Thanks so much to MFP for this amazing site and the tools you offer to us FOR FREE. Thanks to the amazing “friends” I’ve met and to those who I have I encouraged to join me on here. Without your love and support, I know I would have left a long time ago. I appreciate every little “wtg” you all put on my wall. Thanks for letting me tell my story. I hope to be here a year from now showing you my “goal weight” pictures…..and best of luck to all of you!

This was me yesterday:



Patti (nationalparklover)