What was your "OK, time to lose this weight" moment?

As I've been chugging along in my weight loss journey I find myself wanting to share more about what inspired me in the first place, so I'll start.

In October, my beloved stepmother died of alcoholic liver disease. It was extremely sudden - she went from active, happy, healthy (in outward appearance, at least), and, you know, normal, to dead within the span of a week. It is one of the most terrifying and saddest experiences of my life so far. First of all, I loved my stepmother with all my heart, and in many ways was closer to her than my own mother. I had a daughter in May of last year and my stepmother saw my daughter as her grandchild, was at the hospital within an hour of her birth, was the fourth person to ever hold her, showered her with love and affection and was there for my daughter (and for me!) in every way. I always thought of her a as a heavy social drinker but not necessarily an alcoholic.. I just had no idea what to look for, and of course the picture has become more clear since her death. One day my father called and said she was in the hospital with jaundice but not to visit her because she was very embarrassed and should be released in a few days. Well, a few days later she was dead. We did get to visit her once before she died and it was absolutely horrible. She was intubated because she couldn't breathe on her own. Her arms were strapped to the sides of her bed because she was delirious and would claw at the tube if she was allowed freedom to move. She was small, sunken, sallow, yellow, she just looked like death. She died a few hours later.

So, that in and of itself was a huge wakeup call about the fragility of life. As I learned more about my stepmother's history with alcohol, I found out that she had been told by her doctor over a year before that she needed to stop drinking.. her daughters knew this was coming.. my uncle had caught her sneaking drinks in the morning.. her google search history was full of "how to stop drinking," "how to reverse liver damage," etc. etc. etc. I still grieve for her daily but I am also ANGRY at her! Her doctor had spoken to her about this. I miss her with all my heart but I am mad, I feel I have been betrayed, my father has been betrayed, her daughters, and her granddaughter, we were all betrayed every time she took another drink. She never would have wanted to leave this world before her daughters had children of her own - her younger daughter is only 18! She never would have wanted to die without seeing my daughter grow up. So terrible.

Writing that was cathartic. But feeling it was horrible. And it also made me examine my own behavior. Despite being vegan, I've always been overweight. An attractive overweight, if I say so myself! I've always felt healthy and been very confident about my appearance. But when I got pregnant I really gave myself free reign to gorge and then after giving birth just sort of hoped the baby weight would magically disappear. I knew it wasn't disappearing and was even getting worse. Near the end of my pregnancy, I had to switch to a larger placeholder wedding ring due to the swelling in my extremities. Then, a few months AFTER giving birth, I had to switch to a LARGER ring. I knew things were not good and I kept thinking that every time I shoveled some insane quantity of garbage in my mouth I was betraying my child the way my stepmother had betrayed hers. And I just wasn't feeling confident or healthy anymore.

I wish I could say that I got serious about weight loss right then! But the truth is that I continued my terrible eating habits and just felt incredibly guilty about it. Sometimes I couldn't sleep at night because I was consumed by my guilt. But then in the light of day I would just snack all day long!

Last month (41 days ago, apparently, as today is my 40th day in a row logging in ), I went to the mall to get some new nursing bras; none of mine have underwires and I hate that feeling. In the dressing room, however, none of the bras in what I thought was my size fit. None of them. I'm sure anyone who has gained weight knows the feeling of going into a dressing room and huffing and puffing and literally sweating trying to get a garment on, feeling like you could burst through the seams, so uncomfortable, under those dressing room lights and with full length mirrors all around you. I knew then that I could not keep burying my head in the sand and pretending the baby weight was going to magically fall off. And then, I knew, I had to really get real, that even beyond the baby weight, I needed to make some serious changes in my lifestyle and my eating habits. I want to live long enough to see my daughter have her own children, her own grandchildren. That even if I WAS confident in my appearance at merely overweight, that I had to stop being so superficial to just focus on how I looked and instead consider my HEALTH, my longevity.

So, here I am. 24 pounds down! 6 pounds until I reach the highest weight I ever was before I got pregnant. 10 pounds from my weight when I actually got pregnant. And 76(!!!) pounds from reaching a healthy BMI. But I know that I can and will do it, because my daughter is worth that.