Still climbing up

Up, up and...to the market where I got my healthier me food. I was like a fat chick in a vegan store=confuckled. Then I thought 'realistic' and it was like someone turned on the light switch. Chicken cutlets, ground turkey and lotsa tomatoes. I use tomatoes for dressing as opposed to salt, pepper and butter. I got my special K cereal. I love the taste of the special K red berry cereal and the objective will be to keep myself from eating the whole damn box it's so delish. I got my veggies and meal oriented foods. No snacks. I was thinking celery to dip in ranch salad dressing, but I forgot to get it. Goodbye bread and potatoes and chips. I can sneak a chip or 2 from the kids. And salad fixins. Spinach and tomatoes and onions and ooh la la. I have already lost 9 lbs by cutting out snacks alone. Ain't that cool? Next week I have a date and hopefully a lasting love affair with the MP3 and the tread mill.

 Considering I Know zero about nutrition and health, I am just going with realism. Realistic is my key word. I don't expect to have the body of a super model because that is just unrealistic, right? I remember when I was 19 years old. A baby and a butterball. Obese for my height, I don't even cross over the 5 foot mark. I was way into home shopping network and watched it a couple hours a day. Tony Little was on one afternoon and he was selling his video tapes (yeah, I wrote video tapes. They went in this antique thing called a VCR. Remember that dinosaur of technology?)

Well, I got those tapes and I worked out 5 days a week. I changed the way I ate and over the course of a year and a half I lost 85 lbs. I was still the same fat chick in a skinny body. I was lost. I went from a size 18 to a size 3 and was like a different person to look at. But on the inside I was a complete mess and still felt like the fattest chick on the block. The body shrunk and the brain didn't. Go figure.

I have been fat since birth. Mom and dad fattened me right on up and despite summers and winters being outside (back in the day before video games, consoles, cell phones and computers) I remained a fat kid. I grew into a fat teen. I don't know what made me make the decision to lose all that weight. Really, it just occurred to me. That's how most of the things in my life happen...they just occur to me.

Know what made me grow again? Grow into this enormous beast? One boy and one girl. I never lost the baby weight. I remember a few years ago when I still worked at the hospital there was a new year's thing on our unit where we all decided to participate and grow healthy. I lost 30 lbs then. Know how I grew it back? Working night shift. Sitting and eating. Ordering out, fast food. Generally living an unhealthy lifestyle. I guess it's time to say enough again.

I am still pint size. I sit here, a midget albeit round and with feet sized 4 and I type this thinking of all the great things that are going to happen this year.

I won't quit smoking.

Jill

1/6/12