Oh food...I just don't know how to quit you.

Thanks to years of self-analysis, and Dr. Phil's "Ultimate Weight Loss Solution" (whaddya know...sometimes Dr. Phil actually IS useful!), I have learned that I am an emotional eater. (It was more of a "duh!" moment than a lightbulb moment, I admit.) I eat when I'm happy. I eat when I'm sad. I eat when I'm stressed. I eat when I'm bored. I eat when I'm frightened. Basically, if I'm breathing, I'm eating. As you can imagine, this has not worked out well for me. (Unless I was prepping to become the fat lady at the circus, but those jobs are hard to find nowadays, what with all the political correctness about circuses out there.) So not only do I consume food, food consumes me. I think about food constantly. I think about what I'm going to eat all. the. time. Something has to be wrong if you're thinking about eating while you're actually eating. You know you have a problem when your inner dialogue goes something like this, "Dood, why are you eating that? You're not hungry. In fact, you're so full you feel like you're going to hurl." Self-awareness I do not need. Self-control...well, I'm kinda short on that.

Food is my drug of choice. I was always too much of a 'fraidy cat to try the illegal drugs, but lucky for me, food is not only legal, it's something EVERYBODY does! There is no stigma attached to eating a nice big juicy steak. Smoking pot...stigma. Cheesy hash brown casserole...totally cool. Sometimes, (and I don't mean this in an offensive way at all) I wish I had turned to an illegal drug. I think it would be easier to quit. I mean, you can quit pot cold turkey, but you can't quit food. Because you will die without food. (I truly am not making light of drug addiction. I realize there are drugs that have powerful withdrawal symptoms, death being among them.) And while I want to be thin, I also like being alive. So you can see my dilemma, right? A drug I can't quit because I will die without it. *sigh* Certainly doesn't make it easy to overcome my addiction.

So here I am, almost 40, 100+ pounds overweight, and on medication for high blood pressure. When did that happen? What happened to that fit, active young woman who loved to dance and was always on the move? (I'm pretty sure my current self ate her. Probably with cheese melted on top.) It's frustrating because I know what my problem/s is/are. Fixing them is where I draw a big fat blank. How do I make myself like what I consider boring food? Will I survive without cheese? (Seriously. I LOVE cheese.) Will I be condemned to a life of broiled chicken breasts with a plain baked potato and steamed broccoli? Will I ever eat butter again? At some point will my life stop revolving around food? Can I learn to eat to live and not live to eat?

That's a lot of questions. I suspect finding the answers will be more difficult than I'd like. But I think without those answers, this journey is doomed to fail as so many in the past already have. This isn't my first time down the path of weight loss. Hopefully, though, it will be my last.

Oops! Forgot this little gem.

The Before Picture. Oh, the horror! Be grateful I didn't subject you to the way they do it on TV, with me wearing nothing but skin-tight bike shorts and a sports bra. You'd have never been the same after seeing that, I assure you. Being the kind-hearted person I am, I spared you the worst by wearing lots and lots of clothes. You're welcome. ;)

I'll update this once a month. Hopefully you'll be seeing less and less of me as the months go by!

Day 1. 266 pounds. Zero pounds lost, 106 pounds to go. This is gonna be one helluva ride!

A journey of 1000 miles...

...begins with the first step. That old cliché rings true for me, as my 1000-mile (or 100 pound) journey started today. The past few days have found me in full-on spring cleaning mode. As I've been purging cabinets and closets and hidden corners, it felt like my house was getting lighter. Looking into my closet and seeing all of the junk gone and the shelves neatly organized felt so good. Then, yesterday, it hit me: if getting rid of the figurative "fat" around the house made me feel so good, wouldn't getting rid of the literal fat around my body make me feel even better? The little light bulb above my head definitely came on yesterday.

I'll be the first to admit that I am not a fit person. My activity level rivals that of a garden slug. Food is my friend, my lover, my confidant, and my comforter. After the past two years, which have been particularly hellacious, I'm at an all time low. (Or high, if we're referring to my weight.) A diagnosis of hypertension back in November put me on red alert that I am not the healthy 22-year old girl I once was. Now that I'm used to the medications and have been cleared for exercise, I finally found the gumption to get to the Y and sign up. I joined Weight Watchers online as well and have been busily tracking my points and filling out my profile. Tomorrow, I will attend my first WW meeting, and Thursday I have orientation at the Y at 9:00 am sharp.

Here I am on Day 1 of my journey to find the new me. I'm trying very hard to be realistic here. I know that I will never burst through a huge paper reproduction of my "before" picture and be the sort of skinny, muscular goddess you see on The Biggest Loser. I'm almost positive I won't ever weigh 125 lbs. (Not without contracting some sort of fun old-timey disease like consumption or the Black Plague.) My goal is to get to a healthy weight, have a healthy BMI, get my blood pressure down without meds and hopefully not have a stroke before I'm 50. I want to be there for my kids as they grow, and I want to be able to participate in their lives.

So today I took that first step of many. It may seem like a baby step to some, but it's a huge step to me. And I can't wait to take all of the many steps to come!