I don't know what to title this...

Recently inspired/encouraged by some friends to do so, I'm going to blog today...*heavy sigh*...about my weight and the process of trying to lose it!

I guess I should start with saying that I did not come out of the womb being ginormous...although I was a big baby! :p anyway...

From what I can remember [i suppose i tried to block some of it out] I started being the 'bigger girl' or, even worse, the 'biggest girl'in my class around fourth grade. The only thing I can attribute it to is that I wasn't ever good at sports or outdoors-y so I didn't ever exercise. The problem seemed to be semi- in control until about 8th grade. As everybody knows, middle school was hell. And as you ladies know, having a boyfriend in middle school was cool and oh so important to a girls self worth, even though it shouldn't be.

I was used to not being cool- I've never been cool- and with the exception of maybe half a dozen times in my life, being cool didn't matter to me. I was surrounded by geeky friends who made being a geek seem normal.

But to not feel worthy enough or pretty enough to have a boyfriend I think does take a toll on a girls emotions. I'm not blaming all my weight gain on that, but it did contribute. I've never been one of those "I'm too upset to eat" people...unfortunately [with one exception that I'll discuss later]. I would be sad and to cure that sadness, I would eat a gallon of ice cream- then gaining more weight, becoming more unattractive, more boys rejected me, get sad, eat ice cream...you see where I'm going with this---the cycle continued.

Something else happened in middle school, 8th grade to be exact, that was a very depressing situation. My cousin Tim died. I hadn't ever really experienced death before that. Not only did he die very young, but in very tragic circumstances. Not feeling like I could talk to my parents too much about it, [my parents were like Tim's second parents, they were devastated- especially my father] I would just sit and eat, watch TV--- really anything to get my mind off of it.

Then came high school. If I'm remembering correctly, from 8th grade until march of my senior year, I gained somewhere between forty and fifty pounds. The majority of that stemming from boys telling me I was ugly, friends making little comments here and there about what size clothes I wore, and extended family telling me I wasn't good enough or pretty enough to succeed in life or fall in love due to my weight. Once again, as illogical as it sounds, I would just eat and eat and eat. Trying to push down my emotions with a hamburger and milkshake.

In March, Dad died. I started college that fall. And from March of that year until December of that year, I maintained my weight. This was the only time in my life that I just didn't feel like eating- I was too sad and too busy to eat.

I'm not blogging to blame all my weight gain issues on my crazy out of control emotions. I admit that I am prone to laziness. A large part of my life has been spent watching TV, sitting on my bum and eating, when I could have been doing something to prevent gaining or even lose.

Any who, back to my story, somewhere in the time between December 06 until December 08, I gained about 30 more pounds...oh joy. I did somehow manage to lose 25-ish of that before I got married this past June...but I'm still holding on to a lot of this weight and I'm to a point in my life where I'm ready to put forth the effort to lose it! I've said before that I've wanted to, but I wasn't anywhere near as determined and tired of being fat as I am now.

So here are the facts...
*I want to lose somewhere between 90 to 94 pounds [my weight varies about 4 pounds from one day to the next sometimes, hence the 4 lbs range]
*I've started going to the gym again some
*But I'm going to step it up and go more frequently and longer
*If I lose 2 lbs a week, I'll reach my goal in 47 weeks [ almost a year :/ ]
*If I lose 3 lbs a week, which is more ideal/unrealistic, it will take 31.3 weeks

I'll keep you updated and let you know how its going! I would appreciate your prayers! I'll definitely need them!

-r jo.