Day 70... 20 Pounds and 56 Inches GONE!

Day 70... 20 Pounds and 56 Inches GONE!
All my life, my mother called me "fat", not something a young girl wants to hear from the one person who SHOULD love you unconditionally. I was NOT fat as a child, but was not aware of that at the time. There is a photograph of me on my blog, you decide if I was overweight at 16 (many hundreds of years ago).



At the age of 23, I went through a bad breakup, and lost a lot of weight, I was 97lb. I got criticized for that. I was NEVER good enough. Well time went on, and the gap got bigger between my mother..and I moved away from my home city, then moved again.. until 1999, when I moved to the US.
After moving to the US, I stopped eating, literally, stopped feeding my body. I would drink coffee or tea and eat a granola bar or a handful of animal crackers. My body went into "starvation mode". I started to put on weight, and my friends could not work it out "you eat like a bird" they would say. I couldn't work it out, my doctor checked my hormone levels, my thyroid was checked at least 4 times, and nothing.
About 8 years ago, I was put on some oral steroids after having a major reaction to penicillin, and I was told to finish the course, which I did... my body didn't like that very much, I had nausea, vomiting. This went on for a good few days, and all I could do was eat a tiny amount every couple of hours. Whilst visiting with my gastro doctor, I told him I thought I had gallbladder problems, which he checked out when he did my upper GI exam. Yes, I did have gallbladder problems, but the nausea and vomiting was from irritation in the stomach from the steroids. Long story short, gallbladder removed.. on the road to recovery. After that, I continued to eat small amounts throughout the day, and lost weight. Guess what happened when I went back to eating sporadically? Yes, you guessed it.. I gained weight.
Life was so hectic, that I had no time to spend on me.. seriously. I was the last person I thought of. As with many people who are overweight, depression set in. I had to get rid of this weight.
I injured my knee a number of month back, an osteochondral defect, is what I was told I had. Basically, my cartilage was damaged. The pain was excrutiating. I could do one or two steps on crutches, and wanted to cry. I felt I would never walk again. "I know, I know" I told my orthopaedic surgeon, "the weight has to come off". Of course, he agreed. Through a lot of pain, I made it to the pool, and that helped some. I had physio three times a week, and those ladies were magnificent! I did the work as they told me, and then some, but the weight needed to come off still.
On March 31st (70 days ago), whilst browsing Blackberryworld Apps, I came across MFP, downloaded it, and then found the website. I registered and started logging.
When I entered my starting weight... I weighed.. 228lb... there I have said it. I never thought I would ever confess to that, but there you go.
I have logged every morsal of food I have eaten, and all the water I have drunk.
I measured myself.. that was even more horrific.

Bust: 53"
Neck 17.5"
Calf 20"
Forearm 12"
Upper Arm 17"
Waist 46"
Hips 54"
Thigh 30"

5' 2" Tall

Dress size US 22

I swim for about 30 minutes a day.. weather permitting, and sometimes twice on Saturday and Sunday. I bought a Fitbit, really only to try to improve my walking, as pain stopped me from doing it. I just tried at first to better my previous day's steps.
The scale wasn't moving for the first week or so, in fact, I started to get very upset.
MoH, kindly told me, "you are losing size, look at those clothes, they are hanging off you".
I held off getting on the scale.
It is now 70 days with MFP...and here are my stats.

208.3lb

Bust 46"
Neck 14.5"
Calf 16"
Forearm 10.5"
Upper Arm 13.5"
Waist 39"
Hips 46"
Thigh 23.5"

Okay...that is a total of 56" lost. (that is accounting for 2 forearms, upper arms, thighs, etc)
So, 19.7lb and 56" gone in 70 days. I can now fit in a large size 12 jeans. They are tight, but I can zip them up. I still have a LONNNG way to go, but couldn't have come this far without my MFPs. Thank you for your support.
I hope that this inspires and or motivates someone.

Kat