From pageant to parent to fat...time for change!

I think I can pinpoint the moment my weight struggles started. I was 18 years old and decided, just for fun, to participate in the county level of the Miss America Scholarship pageant. I was shocked and excited when they announced that I won! Who doesn't need extra money for school? So began a year of preparation to compete at the state level in the Miss Oregon competition. While I never really had weight problems, I had body image problems...butt was too big. ribcage too wide, thighs too heavy....I didn't look like the magazine version of thin, so I thought I wasn't. (what would I give now to have THAT body back! lol) Add to that a pageant committee, whose job it was to get me ready for the state pageant, telling me I was still too fat, and it was a recipe for disaster. I was 5 ft. 6 inches tall, weighed 126 lbs, and wore a size six, and their opinion was I was too fat. So, on top of 2-3 hours of dance practice a day, I was living on nothing more than a microwaved chicken breast and water a day. That is when my idea of the correct way to diet became starving myself.

As I got older and started a family, I was always able to keep my weight down while I was preganant and nursing because I was vigilant about how I ate to benefit my baby. But in between, the weight would creep up because old habits returned, my family was my priority, and I didnt include my health on that list. So out would come the good-ol starvation diet again! Strangely enough (sarcasm), that diet seemed to work in reverse! I got heavier and heavier! Every time my body would catch on that I was trying to restrict food intake, it would grab hold of the fat and hang on for dear life!

Flash forward to now....I am fat. I have at least 50 extra pounds that I could lose to even feel like I am at a healthy weight again. No, I will never be 126 pounds again, I know that. But this year I had my gall bladder removed, found out I have the beginnings of arthritis in my knee, and have seen an elevation in blood pressure. It is time to stop abusing my body, and find the right way to get this weight off for good.

I think the clincher, even though the health issues SHOULD have been, was looking through family photographs. My passion is photography, I have a camera in my hands all the time, but looking at pictures of family vacations, holidays, etc., I am not IN any of the photos. I hide BEHIND the camera because I hate being IN pictures. I am literally missing from my family's photo memories! My kids are almost grown, my daughter just got married, and there are thousands of pictures, But I'm not in them, and even though that is of my own making, it still makes me sad. So it is time to take control. I need to reclaim my life, stop hiding, and get healthy. And I think this could be the the method and the forum where I can find success! I'm hoping, hoping, hoping! :happy: