I'm not a blogger and I have tried once before to create a blog to document a weight loss journey that wasn't successful. Anyway, I thought now might be the time to start again!
A little background on me! I am a pediatric nurse. I was very thin most of my childhood and I remember people forcing me to eat or sitting at the dinner table for hours because I would gag on certain foods. Now that I work as a GI nurse I understand that is the WORST thing you can do to a picky eater. Through high school I maintained a healthy weight mostly because my mom was overweight and I never wanted to have to deal with those issues myself. In college I worked a lot and ate a lot of pizza so I'm guessing that is when I start the cycle of gain 10lbs lose 10lbs, but it was never a lot of weight on my 5'8" frame. Fast forward to 2007...my best friend was diagnosed with colon cancer but I had plans to be a travel nurse...so I went. I loved it, but I was also concerned about what was happening at home, especially when I learned her cancer was stage 4. I still managed to only gain about 5 lbs. I decided to continue traveling and got an assignment...on the dreaded NIGHT SHIFT! I know a lot of people who like night shift, but it was NOT for me. I slept all the time and when I wasn't sleeping I was eating. I managed to gain 30lbs before I decided I really needed to be at home helping my friend. I lived with her and her husband and their daughter to help out. While there I managed to fall and sprain both of my ankles. I think of that as the beginning of all my loss of control. After she passed away I spent more a few more months at home before I resumed my travel nursing...where once again I was stuck on crazy rotating shifts. My weight managed to balloon to 250-a total 100lb weight gain! I couldn't believe I had gone from a pretty healthy, active person to someone who pretty much spent all my time asleep or eating on the couch.
I continued travel nursing and made it to Los Angeles where I was finally on day shift, but still full of horrible habits and managed to gain another 8lbs. I was having joint pains, plantar fasciitis (probably from both the weight gain and the bilateral sprained ankles that I never properly rehabilitated) and just plain lethargy.
I moved on to the San Francisco Bay Area and felt somewhat motivated to make some changes after a horrible hike with a couple of friends. There was a time in my past that hike would have been no big deal and this time I was practically in tears.
I entered a challenge at work and managed to lose about 30lbs. For some reason, I felt like I would never reach the end so I lost all my motivation. I just didn't think I could be successful. I have managed to keep off about 20lbs from my all time high of 260(ish).
At this point in my life I am almost 40 and love being outside and nature and it worries me that I am missing out on so many things in life due to discomfort, both physical and emotional, related to my weight. I don't enjoy social situations anymore unless it's a dark theater because I am sure people are looking at me. It's uncomfortable to go to theaters or ball games because I worry about stairs and if the person who sits next to me will be annoyed if my leg touches theirs. I want to run again and wear cute clothes! So here I am, I've decided to start the Kaiser Healthy Weight Management Program. I always scoff at fad diets or elimination diets so it will probably surprise some people that I am doing it, but I feel like I need the motivation of losing a lot of weight fairly rapidly and I feel like the transition program will help me return to my healthy roots. I'm going to do 2 more posts today about day 1 and 2. I'm doing it mostly for myself because I want to be able to remind myself of what I put myself through to get back my health! I also spent a lot of time looking for Optifast blogs and was surprised to not find many recent ones so I thought maybe someone out there would benefit. :-)
So wish me luck and if you are a fellow Optifaster...congratulations on your life change and good luck!!
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