An Introduction to me...

So what do I have talk about? What is my motivation behind spilling my guts online? Well, like most North Americans.... I have had a weight problem. For most of my life, I have walked past mirrors and didn't like the reflection. But worse - I was lacking the energy to get up and walk past a mirror in the first place! My daughter would ask me to go outside and shoot some hoops, but the thought of being out of breath, the sore knees and ankles that were plaguing me, and the idea of how I might look silly overwhelmed me to the point of missing out on some really special times with her. Since getting married, the scale had slowly crept up to 249.6 pounds. Who was this person that lost so much control of herself?

I was not happy. I struggled with emotional issues from many attempts at quitting smoking, being on and off the pill, learning to live with my new husband, and blended family issues were abundant. I was flying into rages over nothing, and was truly unable to find joy in even the most wonderful moments of my life. Our wedding was lovely, but the honeymoon even ended in vicious arguements - mostly due to my emotional rollercoaster and my new husband's disgust for my smoking habit...

Things HAD to change. I quit the pill for good. After several poor attempts, I also quit smoking for good. I went through some personal counselling, and we even tried some marriage counselling. The latter was not not my husband's idea of a good time and so we ended up not returning. Things still seemed so tense - I was always so unhappy. Fighting to get control in my new life seemed so useless. There were kid issues that seemed destined to destroy us, because I wanted some control... I soon realized what really needed my control. The scale wasn't telling me I was in trouble - I refused to step on it. My knees and ankles were now in chronic pain, and I was walking around like I was 90. But when I had to buy a pair of 24 jeans, I couldn't fool myself any longer. A couple of really awful Christmas pictures from 2006 sealed the deal: I was seriously overweight.

On Janulary 3rd, 2007 I joined Weight Watchers. I thought to myself, "Hey. I can lose 30 - 40 pounds, right?" Well, I had obviously done a great job of fooling myself, because when I saw my little book pop with the numbers 249.6, I felt like I needed to get my big ol' behind right out of there. 87 pounds??? They wanted me to lose 87 POUNDS?

A brief discussion with my husband went something like this:
Me "Kenny, I can't do this. That's just too big of a goal for me."
Him "You can do it. I'll help."
Me "But it will cost alot of money, and take an awful long time."
Him "You can do it. I'll help."

So I began my Weight Watchers journey.