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Monday, October 29, 2012

The Truth About Me

Here I am, new to this world. Blogging! Something I basically told myself I would never do. But I feel like I have something to offer. I have a voice, and whether anybody listens or not, I am putting it out there. I am here to tell you the truth about weight loss. I have lost a large amount of weight and I have quite a bit left to lose. But I needed help and I frankly couldn't find it out there. So here I am, the help, the truth about what it is like to be as large as I was and what it is like to lose.

The truth about me is, I am the second of three children. The only girl, and I am the one who has always been overweight while my brothers have always been very thin. Lucky bastards! (I love them really!) I had a very rough life, and I went through many things that contributed to my weight. But I do not blame those events solely on my weight. I am the one who made the decision to eat and not exercise. Thing is I feel like it is too easy for people to put blame on something or someone else. Your mother didn't force feed you cake and tie you to a chair! Take some responsibility! It took me a long time to take responsibility for what I had done to myself.

Lets get back on subject ;) I met my husband in 2003 when I was 18, I weighed 155 pounds. I was thin, but I was not healthy. I was basically starving myself. I only ate twice a day, and when I did eat I wouldn't allow myself anymore than a small bowl of salad, and some sort of fruit. I worked out 2 hours a day and I spent a lot of time obsessing over calories. My husband, being the "Mr. Fix-it" he is thought he could help me. Unfortunately, he in a round about way took me from one eating disorder and tossed me into another. I am not blaming him, like I said I must take responsibility.

When I was 21 I was engaged to him and shortly there after became pregnant. My weight at 2 months pregnant, 230 pounds. In 3 years I had gained 75 pounds! I was out of control, and I could feel it. I am a control freak from the word go! Everything in my life is done with such precision, schedules, calendars, sticky notes. I have a plan for everything! I hate feeling out of control. During my pregnancy I began feeling more and more out of control and I slipped into a deep depression. Over the course of 8 months I gained approximately 50 pounds. I had my little girl in December, 5 weeks early due to preeclampsia. At my 6 week check up I weighed 270 lbs.

Over the course of 2 years I was a "yo-yo dieter," I worked out really hard for a few months, then gave up. I tried every fad diet I could get a hold of. I took diet pills, I even started starving myself again. I went down to 250 and then gained it all back. In 2008 I became pregnant with my second daughter, I was so excited to be having another child. I knew this time I would do everything right. I only put on 15 pounds during pregnancy and lost 20 lbs when she was born in 2009. My daughter was born with a very rare genetic disorder, there was nothing I could do to brace myself for the depression that set in after she was born.

From 2009 to 2011 I went from 265 pounds up to 335 pound. A gain of 70 pounds! I literally felt so much hate for myself that I ended up locking myself up from the world. I had this mind set that if I couldn't stand to look at myself, how could anybody else. It became such a lonely life. It was also a very unhealthy one. I got to the point where regular day to day activities where hard, sometimes almost impossible for me. I stopped wearing shoes that I had to tie, because I couldn't keep myself bent over long enough to get them tied, before I would start to black out. Walking from one end of the house to the other would cause me to be out of breath like someone who just ran a mile or more. Even getting out of bed proved to be exhausting. I was more than embarrassed, I was ashamed.

In the fall of 2011 my husband took a job on the other end of the state. Six hours away from my hometown, six hours away from everything and everybody I knew. Six hours away from my entire life! How would I start over in a new town, a small town. I was so scared I would not be accepted, I was almost afraid they would run me out of town. When we got here I was still in the mindset of not wanting to be around people, because I was ashamed and scared. When we got here we were really down on our luck. Financially broken. We moved in with my husbands grandmother as to help us with saving money and having a safe place for our beautiful children to live. Grandma had an old stationary bike sitting in the basement. In the area that we moved into. It taunted me. Everyday I walked past it, it called out to me. While I watched t.v., while I slept, while I played with my children, it was there. It knew what I needed, and eventually I broke.

I went to the doctor for an illness and found out my blood pressure was very, very high! I was scared. My family has a lot of heart problems and I didn't want to repeat the cycle. Eventually, I had to go back and do some blood work and diabetes screening. I was pre-diabetic and my blood pressure was still very high. That day I came home, I sat and cried. I cried so hard my ears hurt. I have never cried like that before. I feared that my girls would lose their mother and never really know who she was. They wouldn't know the sacrifices I made for them, they wouldn't know the love I have for them, they wouldn't know who I was or where I came from. I would be a stranger to them. A picture that was hung in their room. Someone they vaguely remembered being around but not really knowing. I needed them to know. It was in that moment I decided to make a change. It was in that moment I got off my 335 pound ass and got to work! I got on that bike, and I knew it was going to change me. I was not going to be that person for much longer. And I was right.

From October of 2011 to December of 2011 I dieted and worked out like a machine. I lost 35 pounds and I was very proud of myself. I started adding in more an more exercises and I began counting calories. I could feel a change happening and I was excited! For the first time in years I wanted to leave the house. I wanted people to see me. I wanted to tell them that even though I was big that I had lost a lot of weight and I felt good! Christmas rolled around and my family supported me with "healthy" gifts. I got running shoes, and two DVDs, a pedometer, a membership to the local gym. I was on top of the world. I rode out this high for about 4 months before everything came crashing down again.

In February, my husband went to the doctor for a sinus infection. This turned into a major crisis for our family. They sent him to get an ultrasound performed on his thyroid. A month later he was going to have biopsies done. Then a month after that he was having surgery and they confirmed our fears. He had cancer. At this point I had lost 50 pounds and I just stopped. I stopped dead in my tracks. I stopped dieting, stopped working out, stopped caring about anything. We got him through surgery and a few minor glitches he had afterwards. But the pain of watching him suffer through all of that got to me. It was a catalyst for my depression. I slipped up and put on 10 pounds.

Here it is, October 2012, one year later. Here I am, writing a blog, telling you, whoever you are, things I haven't even told my family. I have now lost 85 pounds. I am happy, but I am also aware that 250 pounds is still well above my healthy weight range. I have worries about what I will look like when I have reached my goal, I have worries about what I have done to myself, physically and psychologically. When I look in the mirror, I still see 335 pound Sheena. I do not see the 85 pound difference. I still shop for the heavier me, I can't grasp this concept of losing weight. How do I change my way of thinking? That is why I am here. So I can talk it out, get it out there, and hopefully if you are reading this, I can help you. That's the only reason I am here, to help.

June 2011

August 2012

8 comments:

  1. Thank you for sharing, I believe you have a wonderful voice! I look forward to following you more. Layout continue to find strength to be there for your daughter and your self in your journey to self discovery!!'

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  2. Grr, stupid auto correct. Thank should say may you not layout! (Dumb)

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  3. Replies
    1. Thanks so much, Dahla! I am so glad people read it and enjoyed it :D

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