I love numbers and rule my life by numbers whether it is the scale, size, test score, job performance, IQ - you name it and I own it. 2014 was a tough year for our family. My father was diagnosed with esophageal cancer and our beautiful daughter was failing college. I was taken off guard by both. My dad was always so healthy and was my mother's caregiver. Our daughter was an AP Scholar in HS and a competitive swimmer so college was a no brainer. Well that all came to crashing down her first semester sophomore year when she was rocking 2 Ds and 3 Fs. These events put me in a spiral and at the same time I felt the only control I had was over my body and specifically my weight. So I called a registered dietician (RD). My first appointment was January 13, 2015. I remember being super excited and nervous at the same time and my RD was amazing. She offered so much support and information plus she made office calls! You read that right - she came to my office. Those were my best lunches working with my RD in the privacy of my office. I was quick to lose 60 pounds and I could not believe how good I felt. I still had more weight to loose, but the difference was just amazing. I remember the RD telling me that loosing 10% of my body weight would reduce my risk of diabetes by 58%. My mother was always tiny until she had me ... she honest to God told me that. It did not help that I was chubby/fat most of my life. My mother's family is riddled with Type 2 diabetes and heart disease. Although I was obese with no medical problems, I was terrified I would be diabetic and suffer a heart attack since my mom and her sisters suffered both in their 40's and early 50's, Not terrified enough to lose weight.
Before the RD I was heading into a size 24 and for whatever reason that was more terrifying than a heart attack. About every 10 pounds, I would drop a size and this really kept me going. I can remember the excitement of being a size 20 and then a size 18. My God I could even fit into some size 16. Sizes mattered to me because I love clothes, accessories and shoes so much. I can only remember being a size 14 ever - I may have been born a size 12. Plus the world of shopping had changed from my childhood and shopping at Sears because they were ahead of their time by having a chubby department for kids!!! That is for another post. Main stream stores carried plus size clothing that actually had some shape and style. With my new svelte size 18 and teetering on size 16, I could also find clothes at JCrew, Ann Taylor and other boutiques and main street department stores along with my skinny girls. I had arrived. I should mention department stores in Boulder, CO (Nordstrom Rack and Macy's) do not carry plus sizes!!
We lost my father and my mother-in-law in the fall and winter of 2015. Our daughter started to spiral out of control (for another post). Basically our lives were flipped and I felt as if I lost control of everything including losing or even maintaining my weight loss. I finally cut ties with my RD. The weight slowly started to creep back, but I was hanging on to a size 20 mainly because I probably stretched my clothes out so much. Then my mother died August 2017 and all hell broke loose. The funny thing is I continued to weigh myself every day. I am barely hanging on to my size 22 (3X) and I am back to online ordering and lots of undergarments to control the rolls. Shit even my jewelry and shoes do not fit -
So it took a broken chair at a 4th of July wedding in 2018 to remind me of the numbers I love,
So it took a broken chair at a 4th of July wedding in 2018 to remind me of the numbers I love.