First size 16 since 16 YO! long
After 4 and 1/2 months loosing weight, I am having to buy new clothes because my old ones fall off of me. I started dieting in a size 24 or 26 pant. Saturday, I purchased (and fit in) a size 16 pair of shorts. I nearly started crying! I have not been able to wear a 16 since I was 16 years old. The shorts are tight, but not grossly so. I can actually breath normally. I am finally able to buy clothes in the 'regular' parts of stores instead of 'plus' size area. It is such an emotional thing to make and goal and actually see progress toward it!
I am not even half way to my goal weight, but I am so happy that I finally made the decision to do it! I have tried to lose weight before with limited success, but nothing like now. Something just clicked in me. I finally saw me eating for what it was ....... gluttony!! I was eating 3000 to 4000 calories a day EASY! It was no wonder that I was so heavy.
I spent my life heavy. I remember at the age of 5 or 6 the nurse telling my mom, "Well, people cannot call her fat YET. She is still in the high-normal category." I will remember that until I die.
I watched my mother battle her weight all of my life also. She was a very curvy 160ish while I was a child. She began to gain weight and it has continued until she now has cronic health problems. She finally could take the pain in her knees no more and scheduled bi-lateral knee replacement surgery for January of this year. She weighed 272 pounds. (History -- One knee was distroyed by a car wreck and pinned back together poorly. The 'good' knee had to carry her heavy weight while the other knee healed. The 'good' knee began having much pain because of the contstant pressure and strain on it. The 'bad' knee healed but never quit hurting. In fact, in the months before the surgery, both knees were so bad that they would bend backwards.)
Anyway, the surgery went very well. However, the day after surgery, she had a moderate stroke. It damaged 20-25% of the right side of her brain. So there she was completely helpless. She could not do anything for herself. She depended completely on the nurses, doctors, and family to do everything. For the first week after the stroke, we did not know if she would live or die.
Three times I sat helplessly and watched a 100 pound physical therapist try to move mom only to drop her. Frankly, the hospital was ill-equiped and/or ignorant as far as how to care for an obese patient. My family and I watched in horror while the hospital staff made my mother look like a side show freak. "We need 5 orderlies to move the fat lady in 304." There were times when my dad and I would insist on helping move my mom because we could tell by looking that there were not enough people. Many times we were told, "You DONT HAVE to help. We can do it." After seeing my mother hit the ground 3 times, I would not budge. My Dad would be on one side and I would be on the other. Between the two of us, the nurses and physical therapists were just along for the ride.
I am rambling...so to make a very long story not so long.....
I could see how my mothers excess weight was hindering her recovery and how the nursing staff actually resented her for her size. (The "recovery home" that she was in tranqualized her so she would sleep instead of bug them.) I decided that I was well on that same road. I weighed 272 pounds just like my mother. I was already having joint pain and other health problems, just like her. Only I was 29 not 62 like her.
That was the wake up call I needed to get motivated and mad enough to do something. My husband and I have lost a total of 118 pounds together in 4 and 1/2 months.
We are well on the road to health. Some say that things happen for a reason.
My mother now is recovering AND loosing weight!...Praise the Lord! She will recover and be able to function on her own again. She may have a limp, but I think that God is healing her bit by bit every day!
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Kudos!
Thanks for sharing!
