September 28, 2002
Hi, my name is Denise. Welcome to my online journal of weight loss.
Not a very attactive picture is it?
I was born in North Carolina in 1955 and have spent most of my adult life here. Yes that makes me an old lady..LOL..but we all get older.I am 47 and very overweight. I spent most of my childhood years moving all over the Eastern Seaboard and even spent some time in Germany. My father was in the Army and his job required lots of moving. So lots of schools. My memories of my childhood are happy ones. I am married with two wonderful children and an 2 adorable grandsons.
Charles, my husband, is the sweetest man on the planet. Some people would argue that one but they don't have to live with him. I do! LOL. He has been my biggest fan for 17 years just as I have been his. He is also my biggest supporter for the journey which I am undertaking right now.
Our daughter, Faith, is 22, married and living in Indiana. She has blessed us with 2 adorable grandsons. C.J. is 4 years old now and Devin is 2. Both are heartbreakers already. As my daughter goes through the trials and tribulations of parenthood she calls me more and more for advice on how to handle discipline, potty training, pacifier breaking, etc. She works hard to help her husband make a home for their two sons.
Robert, our son is 16 and has entered his teenageitis years with a vengence. Somehow we will survive them intact and alive..LOL..He is one of the sweetest kids I know. Of course that could just be his Momma talking but somehow I don't think so. He goes through his rebellious times but his sweet side takes over for the most part. He has set goals for himself and I take pride in watching him trying to achieve them.
I am beginning my journey to a better me. Recently I have had to make some tough decisions about how I want to live the rest of my life. I have been fighting my weight for years and have always felt I was on the losing end of the battle. But not anymore. You see, I have started Weight Watchers and now feel like I am in control again.
Something else I should mention here is that I am approaching my 25th week in the no smoking zone. I have traded one habit for another. Now instead of lifting a cigarette I am lifting a fork.
December 15, 2002
I haven't been recording much in here lately. Mostly I have just been trying to maintain over the holidays. If I can just maintain that 270 until after Christmas I think I'll be doing great. Lots of good food out there right now and all the parties. My husbands work alone has 5 alone planned between now and the 24th. Whew, its going to take some hard work to keep away from all the buffet tables. I can tell you that I am not looking forward to that, though I do love a good party.
Christmas Eve will be 6 months since I have smoked a cigarette. Wow I never thought I'd be able to do it. But if I can give up cigarettes for this long I can hang in there with Weight Watchers for the same amount of time.
December 13, 2002
I just got off the phone with my doctor. At least she is my doctor until July then I have to start all over again.
All of my bloodwork has come back....as a matter of fact all my tests have come back. Papsmear was normal, mammogram was normal, lupus scan was negative, hepititus scan was negative, fingernail fungus was negative but my Liver Scan was double what it was last time they took it. 60 is normal, my first testing was 80 and this time it was 163. I don't have a clue what all the numbers mean.
January 3rd. I have to go in for a liver ultrasound and this coming Monday I have to call for an appointment out in town with a GI-Liver specialist. My mothers baby sister is having liver problems, but we've known that for a year. She is in stage 4 and is way past getting a transplant. For her its just a matter of time. Then a couple of weeks ago they discovered that my mothers older sister is now having liver problems. Mom so far has tested clear of any problems and they are trying to link this back to my maternal Grandmother who had Systemic Lupus and developed Cirrosus of the Liver (I know I didn't spell that right) as just one of the side effects. They think that at some point she was exposed to hepititus C which caused all her liver problems and that we may have been exposed through her while it was still active in her body.
I don't mind telling you that I am scared to death right now. She is already talking biopsies and surgeries. Whatever I was prepared for it certainly wasn't this.
November 25, 2002
What a frightful weekend. I blew it all to pieces this past week and Saturday was the worst. I raked yards for about 4 hours on Sat., then mowed the grass for the last time of this year and then my girlfriend calls and wants to take hubby and me out to dinner for his birthday (we've been celebrating his birthday all week). We went to the new Japanese resteraunt where I promptly blew it. I counted at least 50 points for dinner. The fried rice was wonderful and so was the chicken. The shrimp was to die for. I walked out stuffed and happy but later on I was totally disgusted with my self. So what I had neglected to eat lunch and only had 6 points for breakfast. Why do we do these things to ourselves? Is it in our makeup somewhere that we set out to sabotage ourselves when we start doing things right for a change? And weigh in is tonight. I am dreading that. Thanksgiving is Thursday and I am now dreading that. If I did'nt have the strength to control myself on Saturday what makes me think I can on Thursday?
November 14, 2002
Yuck!! Today I had to go in for my yearly violation. To add insult to injury they want me back tomorrow for my yearly mammogram and to let the vampires have their wicked way with me as well. I have to fast tonight (nothing after 7:30pm) so that all this can happen. Then I am done for another year. My doctor did notice my weight loss BTW. According to my medical records I have lost well over 30 pounds so I must have already been losing before starting weight watchers. Personally I think it was a typo in my records. Because I know that I have never been over 300 pounds at anytime. If I had been I would have started with WW sooner than I did. I am still struggling trying to learn how to eat right but I must be doing something right as I am losing steadily. I do have a hard time trying to eat the points I am supposed to have and have to force myself to eat in order to get to the low end of my range (most of the time) and then I have days where I can't seem to fill up at all and have to forcibly back off. Luckily those don't happen often.
November 11, 2002
I hit my 10 pound mark today. I was tickled to death to be able to raise my hand to get that lovely dark pink ribbon with the number 10 centered on a star. It is sitting proudly on my refrigerator with the purple one. Now that I can really see that it is coming off I can hardly wait for the day I can claim the 15 pound star! Hopefully that won't take me another 4 weeks.
November 5, 2002
The monthly terror. Seems that I not only skip months now but when I do have the darn thing I have to go and gain weight as well. I didn't react very well to the weight gain at all. Actually behaved like a child and had a temper tantrum. (Of course that could have been because I missed a couple of doses of my estrogen too. I do tend to become just a teensy bit witchy when that happens.)
October 28, 2002
Ghost Walk. The ghost walk was great. Hubby, bratlet and I had a great time. Seemed like we walked forever. The Civil War Re-Enactors were wonderful. (They were doing the Battle of New Bern.) We spent 4 hours touring the Hysterical district and finally wound up at a Church for dinner. I was worried about whether or not I could eat anything but they had vegetarian pasta with garlic bread, salad, tea and pie. I turned down the pie. Next week I don't have a clue what to do but I do know that since we started these "walks" I started losing more than 2 tenths of a pound at a time. Hopefully by 4 on Sat. we can come up with something to do.
October 21, 2002
Scales. I am taking my scales with me tonight for weigh-in. Last night at my Mom's I stepped on her scales (I know but I couldn't resist) and weighed less than I thought. So I thought I'd check my scales out when I got home. There was a 16.5 pound difference. I like my Mom's scales better...LOL so I am going to have WW check mine while I am there to see the real difference...Those scales are in the trash...I stood on them 4 different times tonight at WW after standing on the WW scales first. I got the same weight 4 times on the WW scales and 4 different weights on mine all heavier. I tossed those suckers right into the trash.
October 16, 2002
Luncheons suck!! Today they had a luncheon for my husbands boss. The man has recently been diagnosed with cancer and they are using any excuse to have an office get together once a month for him. I commend them for that but......... I cannot eat the food...(wailing). Today I felt like a total ditz sitting there with my glass of water and drooling at the goodies on the table, some of which I had made. I was definately glad when I could reasonably make my exit and come home to eat my salad and sandwich in relative peace. Now how do I handle the next 5 functions? As there will be two more office luncheons this year as well as 3 office Christmas parties where none of the food will be suitable for me to eat.
October 13, 2002
Walking. I started walking a couple of weeks back because I wanted to go to the Mum Festival this weekend. Well I got my wish and DH took me. We walked for 3 hours just looking at all the flowers and touring the booths set up in our small downtown area. Then he took me to lunch at Chick Fil A because he knew I could eat there. The hardest part was deciding whether or not to be a good girl and just eat what I knew I could have or be a bad girl and eat whatever I wanted. In the end I decided to be a good girl. Then we went off for another walk at the department stores. It was in Target that I started to flag. By the time we got back to the car I felt like my legs were going to fall off but I still had to get through the grocery store. I managed but by the time we got home DH had to cook dinner for us all. Thank goodness for Weight Watchers meals. He brought me a selection to choose from and fixed his own dinner. I was in bed by 8:30 and I haven't done that since my youngest was born 16 years ago. Now we are planning on going on the Ghost Walk on the 26th. Thats a 4 hour, low intensity, walk and I am finding myself looking forward to it very much. DH has told me that he will walk with me in the evenings so that I don't have to go alone...YIPEE!!
October 10, 2002
I am in my 4th week with Weight Watchers now and I finally lost 5 pounds...LOL...I was so excited that when she presented me with the purple 5 pound ribbon I almost cried. This has been so hard but I am in it for the long haul. I have a total of 127 pounds to lose and I know its going to take awhile to get it off. After all it didn't get on me overnight so I shouldn't expect an overnight weight loss either. I guess I should tell you that my starting weight was 280.8 and that was on Sept. 16th. On Sept. 23rd I had lost -4.2 (276.6) pounds and was thrilled to death. But on Sept. 30th I had a weight gain of +.6 (277.2) pounds. I felt a little blue but didn't let that discourage me. I just tried harder and on the 7th of Oct. I had lost -1.4 (275.8) pounds for a total of -5 pounds. One of the things we discussed at our meeting last week was defining moments. In particular the moment that decided us to lose the weight. When I was a preteen there was a shut-in that my Mother and Grandparents used to visit. Of course we got dragged along. But it was cool because it was in the country and there was lots of things to do. The only uncool part was having to sit in the bedroom with this really huge lady. She lay on a full size bed but there was no room for anyone else, much less her husband who was this skinny little stick of a man. "Aunt" Annie took up the entire bed and then some. Her bottom hung off one side and her belly hung off the other side. I am not kidding girls, she was that big. The day before I started Weight Watchers I had a dream about this lady. Only it wasn't her face I saw it was my own. It scared the bejesus outta me let me tell you. I had not thought of "Aunt" Annie since I was 12 when she died. Now the memories are really clear. I remember that they had to bury her in a piano crate because they couldn't get a coffin big enough for her. That is not what I want my grandchildren or my nieces and nephews to remember about me. How big I was. That for me was the DEFINING moment.
 
 
|