My Weight Loss Journey - Part I

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January 2017 at 225 pounds vs October 2018 at 156 pounds

Let's talk about weight, baby, let's talk about weight and me, let's talk about all the best things and the worst things we can be.

I've been a big girl pretty much all my life (I'm in my 50s...not quite sure how THAT happened but it's better than the alternative).  My mother is fond of telling me how my pediatrician referred to me as a "real chowhound" when I was a baby. She was also sure to tell me when a neighbor said I had "a weight problem" (I was in junior high). Of course I look at pictures from my teenage years and wish I was that 'fat'.  

I was a size 12 going into college. I gained the obligatory Freshman 15 (and then some), spent the summer working out, returned a size 12...lather, rinse repeat x4. I'd start the school year looking good at size 10 or 12 and finish the year size 14. When I graduated college I moved to New York City.  There's a lot of walking when you live there, so I did a pretty good job of staying size 10 or 12. 

Despite the walking, there was also a lot of great pizza and an abundance of bars and restaurants and food carts.  I'd gotten up to 150 pounds on my short frame (I'm 5'2" on a good day) and my 12s were getting uncomfortably tight. (During the work week, on the 6-block walk from the subway to the office I'd hit up a food cart for breakfast which was either a ginormous bagel with a schmear or 2-3 donuts; lunch was usually a massive deli sandwich unless the gyro cart showed up and dinner was often delivery Chinese, pasta or a grilled cheese sandwich.  Weekends were for bagels, brunches and bars.  Oh, and I was smoking a pack a day.)

The first time I remember trying to learn how to lose weight was during these NYC years, after reading Susan Powter's "Stop the Insanity".  That was in the early-1990s and Powter's story got a ton of attention - she'd lost a bazillion pounds, shaved her head and became an aerobics instructor or something. She was all about cutting fat out of your diet and getting your body moving. That a gram of fat had twice the calories as a gram of carbs or protein was mind-blowing. For real!

So I started counting fat grams. And I stopped eating donuts, cream cheese on the bagel, cheddar and roast beef in the deli sammies, slices of pizza.  I switched to fat-free salad dressings and lower-fat margarines.  I joined a gym, going 3-4 times a week and mixing cardio with weight machines.

And 20 pounds melted away.  At 130 I looked awesome! And then I moved to Texas.

NO ONE WALKS IN TEXAS! It's too freaking hot TBH. I joined a gym, but without the extra walking the weight started creeping back up.  My low-fat-no-more carb-tastic diet was also doing me no favors. I spent the late-1990s bouncing between 150-160.  And just past Y2K I found myself at 186.

It got worse before it got better. Sit tight, and Part II will be here before you know it.