Okay, true confession time.  In my first blog I told you that I had started at 200. While that is true, what I failed to mention is that I started at 200 pounds THIS time.  Truth is, a little over six years ago I weighed 231 pounds, and it may have been higher except that I stopped weighing myself until I finally went to get help.  There are people on The Biggest Loser that start at the ranch with less weight on them than that.  What a wake-up call.

      Six years ago, I did what I promised myself I would never do…I went on a liquid diet.  Most everyone can remember Oprah on her show pulling a wagon of fat behind her after losing 65 pounds on a liquid diet only to gain it back and then some.  But I had a different experience.  While I did not keep all the weight off, I did learn two valuable lessons from this experience.

      First, I learned that I could actually survive on 800 calories a day.  I know this seems extreme, but who would have thought you could actually function on so little each day?  I could even exercise, go to work, play with my kids, and all on less than 1,000 calories.  For the first time I realized how what I had been eating was WAY more than my body needed.

      Secondly, I finally learned what people meant by portion size.  I had a portion size…it was just ridiculously large.  Having been bulimic, I had never learned how much protein, carbohydrates, and veggies and fruits were reasonable.  I honestly did not know what that would even look like.  And then, knowing that people could live on 800 calories, I could be sure that a reasonable portion size was not going to sap me of energy and kill me in the end.

      Now you may be asking yourself, how did she learn portion control from a liquid diet?  I guess I should have mentioned it was a modified liquid diet.  We had 8 weeks of basically drinking our meals before they introduced one meal back into our plan at a time.  As each meal was added, they gave us a variety of healthy options to choose from.  These ideas have helped me, even today, to make wiser food choices.

      After this experience, I lost a total of 50 pounds, but 20 pounds of this kept coming on and off.  This is where the running came into play.  I realized I had to do something drastic in order to truly get my life back on track.  Can you say half-marathon?

*Join me next time when I share how I went from hardly being able to run non-stop for one minute to running for 13.1 miles.

      Looking over the last ten years, I notice that I am rarely in any family pictures. In order to avoid documenting my weight, I have failed to leave complete memories for my kids.  Honestly, if you look at our family albums you would think my husband was a single parent.

       The funny thing is, I love taking photos and documenting the important and not so important events in my children's lives.  I just made sure I was always the picture taker and not the subject of the photos.  I have been an avid scrapbooker over the years, and the photos of me in the album are carefully selected to only show the times when I was in control of my eating and exercise.

       I am sure it goes back to the whole distorted body image problem that causes the eating disorders in the first place, but I am working hard to realize that my kids need complete memories, no matter how flawed I feel the images are. 

        It is amazing the power we sometimes give to photos. When I go to my mother-in-law’s house there is an old picture of us on the refrigerator that makes me cringe every time I see it.  Not only is it an amazingly unflattering picture of me, but it also documents the effects of what my eating problems did to my family as well.  As you can see from this seven year old photo at the beginning of this blog, my entire family is rounder of face than they should be.  We were all unhealthy, including the kids, and as parents, we have to take credit for that.

        I am trying to give less power to photos, but I still slip back occasionally.  Before my last half-marathon, I received some photos of me from a Thanksgiving race where I was 20 pounds heavier.  I looked at those photos and was so excited that my Surf City photos would be different.  A week ago I got photos from the finish line at Surf City and to my disappointment, I looked no thinner than the Thanksgiving photo.  Now I know that I have made significant changes, but I couldn’t believe the power those finish line photos had to make me doubt my accomplishments.

       I need to remember that I am a work in progress and that no matter what the photos might appear to document, I am on the road to the flabulous me.

Join me next time when I share my weight loss journey over the last six years.