Weight issues have always been a prevalent part of my life. I remember being “heavy’ as a child (mainly after the age of 8 years old). Now that I look back on my childhood, it seems like food always seemed to be the main focal point for me. Whether it was at home, friend’s houses, special events or religious events I always seemed to be focused on what was available to eat. This is an interesting revelation for me because I guess I was not really aware of it at all. What could have been the cause of that? Was my brain just wired to want food all the time? Not sure.
I was never obese, thankfully, however was never happy with my weight (I think I was 20 pounds heavier than I should have been growing up). Even though that doesn’t really sound like it should be a big deal…it was. All of my friends, when I was young, were thin and beautiful. I was heavy, had curly hair, braces, and wore glasses. This was definitely not a winning combination because back in the 80’s/90’s, these were reasons kids in school were bullied.
Trying to Make a Change
After high school, I joined a gym (Bally’s Total Fitness) and decided to start getting healthy. Unfortunately, just going to the gym a few days per week and not changing my eating habits didn’t really help my situation. I worked at a frozen yogurt store which also didn’t help because I didn’t monitor what I ate. There were always good things to eat there (i.e. yogurt, toppings, brownies, etc).
During college I attended many parties and consumed quite a bit of alcohol (as most students do). I went dancing a lot with friends (which is good exercise) on the weekends. However, what do you at 1 or 2am when the clubs/bars close? Well, you go out to a restaurant to eat because by that time you are hungry…right? This was another bad habit that I developed.
During graduate school I was pretty busy. I worked full time because I had to pay for my apartment. After work, I went to the gym because I attended my classes at night. However, for some reason when I moved up to northern California my eating habits got worse. I didn’t have anyone to monitor what I did or ate. I shopped for myself and just bought whatever I wanted which included lots of junk food. Since I didn’t focus on what was healthy to eat, my problem with food just continued. My weight climbed up to 170 pounds by the time I finished graduate school. I just let myself fall into a serious downward spiral.
Taking Action
At age 29, I made the decision to get the weight off for good. I purchased the Jenny Craig program to lose weight prior to my wedding because of the lack of success that I’d had my whole life. After one year on the program, I lost 30 pounds! Learning that counting calories and being careful with my food was the main component in the process. Another thing I learned was that it was extremely important to exercise however my food intake was the key to getting the weight off.
Even though this program worked for me, it seemed as though I really didn’t learn how to eat properly. The Jenny Craig program focused (at the time….not sure how it is now) on eating prepackaged food and snacks. The idea was to eat 6 times per day (about every 3 hours) and to keep yourself from feeling “hungry.” Given that I was not learning how to portion my food and cook on my own, it is not really surprising that it was difficult to maintain this type of nutrition program.
Downward Spiral
So then I forgot all of this during my first pregnancy (I gained 50 pounds) and for quite a few years after that. I just ate pretty much whatever I wanted because I thought I could. Somewhere in my head I knew that it wasn’t a smart way to do things but somehow my knowledge of healty eating just disappeared. It wasn’t until about 2 years after my 3rd child (my daughter) was born that I was able to lose an additional 15 pounds (after losing the “pregnancy weight”) and was very happy with my weight. I got myself down to 135 pounds (much better since I’m short – 5’3″).
Then about a year & a half later, during the holidays, we did a lot of baking and the weight came back on. Unfortunately, I found myself at 150 pounds and have been fighting with the weight ever since.
rtperez72 
