My Story (with pics)

Tomorrow will be 10 weeks since I decided to take control of my life. I started "dieting" last summer inadvertently. My husband who does 90% of our cooking took a job that left him only home on the weekends which left me cooking for our family of 5 boys. Now, I am not your typical housewife, I was raised with my father doing all the cooking and he tried to teach me how to cook as well as he could, but that left me cooking a lot of boxed dinners and spaghetti. LOL My husband on the other hand was taught to cook by his Southern Mom so that meant almost every meal was something fried, something cooked in butter, etc. Not that I am knocking his cooking, because it is AWESOME, but it left me almost 100 pounds overweight (depending which ideal weight chart I looked at). I was 208lbs when he took that job.

With him out of town, I started cooking (as best as I could) healthier and tended not to eat as much. Fast forward about 8 months or so which was April and I had managed to lose about 13 pounds without actually trying. I did cut out regular soft drinks and switched to diet soda(which is my only vice, I don't smoke, I don't drink so dammit, I am gonna keep drinking my diet soda!). I noticed my clothes starting to feel looser, and that made me want more. I have been concerned for my health as my mother passed away almost 7 years ago at the age of 52 due to complications from Diabetes that would have...COULD have been prevented if she would have taken care of her weight. I was 39 years old I didn't want to go down that same path. I have 3 sons and 2 stepsons that need me. My youngest is only 2 so I am needed around a lot longer than the 13 years between my age and my Mom's age at the time of her passing. My weight that day was 195 pounds.

So, I started eating right, counting and logging my calories like crazy and walking almost every day.

It is now a little over two months later than that day and I have dropped down to 168 pounds. I literally have someone tell me every day how "good" I look. I had someone call me skinny and told me to eat a sandwich! LOL! I never in my entire life have been called skinny!

I have went from a tight fitting size 18 to a very loose fitting size 12. I actually have a pair of capris that I bought the other day that are a size 10! I haven't been in a size 10 since I was 21 years old. I had the BEST NSV the other day! I ran into my ex-Mother-in-law at the store and she came over to me and told me she had to do a double take to recognize that it was me she was seeing! OH YEAH!

Like I said earlier, I am not at my goal weight yet. I still have about 33 pounds to go, but for the first time I actually believe I can do it! I have tried and failed so many times trying to lose weight, I have no idea what is different this time that has made me stick to it, but I am not going to question any of it!

Here is a before and after picture of my face. Sorry that it's only the face, I am not brave enough to post a full body, and to be honest, there aren't many pictures of me....I am always taking the pictures!