My story so far

So I joined Weight Watchers on the 1st of the year (how cliche....though it was a decision I'd made a few weeks prior.) I didn't start tracking points until this past Monday (January 12, 2008 is my official "start" day.) I had been on Christmas break and just recently came back to start classes for the semester. I realized for this to really work I needed to start the plan when I was fully ready. For me, that meant waiting until I was back in my own apartment and fully in control of meal planning, shopping, preparation, etc. It also helped that one of my roommates was going to be using WW as well and her experience with the program would be helpful in getting started. So in terms of my experience on the program so far, it's been great (though it's only been 2 days, so it might be a bit early to ask. ;-) ) I have been quite diligent about tracking my points, and did a good job of putting together a meal plan for the whole week that stays within points. (New lunch favorite: 8 inch tortilla with 2 oz. turkey, 1 oz. reduced fat cheddar, 1/4 of a pear, sliced, spinach, and some honey mustard- 7 points total, but quite filling with some fruit or veggies)

Any way, obviously I'm here and trying to lose weight, so I guess I should give "my story."

As stated in my profile, my parents were both overweight growing up - something that was passed to me. I definitely had horrible eating habits. Dessert was always part of the day- usually an oversized bowl of ice cream or similar sweet. My parents both worked, so I was free so snack on whatever I liked. Though we never drank sugared soda or had candy in the house, in fact, we usually had healthy whole grain cereals, applesauce in place of sugary fruit snacks in our lunches, and didn't eat much fast food, portion control was a foreign concept in our house. I didn't get fat on high calorie, low nutrition foods. For the most part, I ate healthfully, just in gigantic proportions far larger than what my, albeit growing, body needed.

My weight didn't really bother me until around 6th grade. I still remember when we learned in science about black holes and how excessive mass of a star is responsible for them. I bet you can figure out where this is going. One particularly cruel classmate got into the habit of calling me a black hole (only for a short period of time....despite his namecalling, I was actually a pretty popular kid who had a lot of friends.) Regardless, it still hurt. It was around that time my weight began to become a real issue for me. Conveniently, this is also the time boy and girls begin to actually realize the opposite sex is more than just a carrier of cooties.

Through junior high and high school I was continually self-conscious of my size. I did proportion out a bit more in high school, which helped. In fact, I even had a few boyfriends, though I always compared myself to my classmates and dreaded summer and its associated swim parties, back to school shopping, and sleeveless shirts.

When I hit college, I was up to 190-195 pounds. At 5' 6", that's heavy. By the end of freshman year though, I had lost between 10-15 pounds and usually hovered around 185. Steady use of biking to get around town/campus, keeping unhealthy snacks out of my dorm room, and a semi-regular gym schedule helped me keep my "freshman 15" negative. Unfortunately, it didn't last. During my sophmore year I put on about 15 pounds as a result of living in an apartment (read: more convenience foods, snacks available, and a car that made it really easy to quickly pick up a hamburger).

By junior year, I was determined (after a nasty break-up) to shed some weight. I lost 10 pounds, but stalled after some serious health scares involving me heart. Though everything was one big false alarm, it broke my momentum, and by the end of junior year I was packing on pounds again, though slowly, and ended the year back where I'd started, at around 200 pounds.

My senior year of college saw my biggest weight gains. I had surgery on a foot that laid me up for several weeks. That, in combination with a best friend with equally bad eating habits and a new found legal ability to buy alcohol, led to a steady weight gain all year. As my friend has said, we enabled each other. If we split the pizza, it was suddenly OK. Working out still made my foot hurt, so I basically abandoned it altogether. I had started college with the hope that over 4 years I would gradually shed my excess weight and start my life post-college the healthiest I'd ever been. Instead, I walked across the stage weighing 236 pounds and hating who I'd become.

Knowing that I was soon moving 2000 miles from home for graduate school, I tried to make changes over the summer. I did my best to eat healthier (I usually just mimicked my older sister, who has always naturally been a healthier eater than me) and joined a gym for the month that I was at home. My work paid off. When I started graduate school, I had lost 16 pounds and weighed in around 220. I knew it was just a start.

So that's my story. Maybe similar to others out there, maybe not. I know that there is no one thing that will make me thin, just as there was no one thing that made me fat. It was one cookie too many here, a breadstick with ranch there, all thrown in with a few beers elsewhere.