The Beginning-ish

My journey into fatdom has been a long one. I was intermittently chubby growing up, gained the freshman 40 in college, and have basically struggled with weight all of my life.

However, pregnancy catapulted me into a body that I'd never before known, and in which I felt imprisoned. After an 85 lb pregnancy -- I'm a stress eater, and it was unexpected -- I had accumulated fat in all sorts of places with which I wasn't accustomed, in addition to those with which I was. Twenty-six months post-partum found me at about 170 lbs, up from my pre-pregnancy weight of 145 lbs.

And 26 months post-partum also found me (expectedly) pregnant again, and the second pregnancy seemed to seal the deal that the weight was not going anywhere. In January 2008, when I was finally ready to face the scale, I weighed in at an unprecedented (non-pregnant) 190 lbs, which is a lot of weight for my 5'4" frame.

I had crossed over from overweight to obese. Not just the subjective kind, but the clinical diagnosis. The one that only truly fat people get.

From January through July of 2008, I managed to get myself back to that 180 lb mark with only moderate effort, where I then appeared to get stuck.

So in July 2008, I decided I was changing my life to live a healthy life style, once and for all. I joined a gym, hired a trainer, and got to it.

Since that time, I hit a post-pregnancy low of 156 lbs, but managed to mysteriously gain back 15 lbs of that through this past Christmas (Dec 2009), despite continued exercise and what I assumed to be healthy eating. (More on this particular yo-yo in a later post.)

And so last month, I had come to yet another decision. I've taken this all fairly seriously, and still seem to be struggling with my weight. How far am I willing to go to be at a healthy weight? It seems I can maintain 170 lbs fairly easily... far into the "overweight" category, but not clinically obese. Do I just accept life as a size 14 forever? Because anything other than that looks like it will require fitness to become my life.

The answer to that question is the reason of the genesis for this blog. Bring your A game, saddlebags. Because I'm coming after you for good.