And Then Shit Changed

The best day of my life was calling the bank that held my Lane Bryant credit card and telling them "I need to close this account, please."
"May we ask why you're closing your account today?"
"Well, I can't wear any of your clothes any longer, I'm too skinny."
I think I actually apologized to the lady...but she just laughed and congratulated me and let me know that's the best reason to close the account she could think of. And so, the account was closed.
I lost a ton of weight, I was sitting around 155-160 and life was ok. I was in a size 12 jeans, and a size M/L shirt. This was the first time as an adult that I was small enough for a 'normal' size shirt. I still really wanted to be in a size 10, which is NOT considered 'plus size'...what I REALLY wanted, tho was to be in a size that was just ONE digit. So, i kept working at it...no junk food (or very very little), exercise, eating mainly raw, healthy fruits and vegetables.
A bunch of personal stuff changed and my membership to the boxing gym had to be cancelled and I was stuck on a college campus with a gym, but a gym with scary treadmills and machines and JOCKS...young, 20-something jocks...I was a flabby almost 30, had three kids, grown up...I did not want to be in the gym with svelte college students. What I did have though was a bike and a pair of running shoes. So...I started biking A LOT, and then I started running stairs by the dorm during evening hours in the summer (campus was practically dead at that time). I did this and I continued to eat sensibly.
I was living off of granola bars, fresh fruit, cheese, and occasional crackers. Sometimes I'd have a p'nut butter sandwich, but usually I'd just have some fruit, or a salad, and some cheese or nuts as protein. I had yet to discover the absolute goodness of tofu and alternate protein sources, I was a little larval vegetarian...just trying to figure it all out.

I eventually lost weight down to about 138-139 and was finally in a size 8/10, S/M shirts and felt GREAT!  It is truly amazing the difference you feel between eating poorly and eating well (healthy). It's tremendous and well worth the sacrifice of sugar and fats. I was also able to fit into ANY clothes I could find that I thought were cute.  No longer was I having to find if an online store had a 'plus size' section, and no longer was I having to wear tents to cover up my belly, or ass. I was wearing TANK TOPS! And flaunting my body for once!

I did have a slip and I gained some of the weight back, but only to about 155, I'm still a size 8/10, and wear S/M. I exercise everyday and still eat VERY sensibly. The only differences now are that I have taken up running, and am trying to lose the final 20-ish pounds to get down to my final goal of 135lbs. After that I will work very hard to maintain that weight and hopefully lead a long, healthy life without worrying about losing "that last <foo> pounds".

Then I Read an Article

One night, while I was being very fat and unhappy with myself, and searching the Internet for any information that would lead me to a healthier lifestyle. I came across an article about a beef farmer who turned vegan and ended up losing 250+ pounds because of it, and why he did it.  The article was really about antibiotics in our food supply and how it has a direct link to resistant strains in humans, and how the FDA knows this, but chooses to take lobbyist dollars rather than protect consumers.

I had already been tossing around the idea of going vegetarian with my then-husband, who didn't really like the idea, but he was willing to listen to me at least. He did agree that we should look for 'cleaner' meat, if possible.  So, I looked and it was way too expensive to buy for a family of 5, on one income. So, I decided that our family needed to be vegetarian, period.

This led to many meals made from fake, frozen, meat-like products. But as I was making dinners like I always did, only with fake meat instead of the real thing, I realized that we were missing a LOT of vegetables.  We were eating like crap!

So, I started trying to find better ways to eat, but my husband wasn't keen on ANY of this, and he began buying ground beef and making himself and our boys dinners every night. I allowed him to do this because I was still unsure if I was even eating remotely healthier than I was before, and I still didn't know how to BE a vegetarian (notice how I was brain-washed to believe that eating meat was healthier than ANY alternative? So much so that I allowed myself to be bullied--more on that later).  But I kept trying.

I learned to eat a LOT of salad, and I learned to eat vegetables that I only thought were gross. And most of all, I learned to eat a much broader variety of foods than I ever had in the past. Yes, forbidding myself meat led to me eating MORE and different foods than before.

I also started going to Yoga in the evenings. I had done yoga in the past, when I had a brief stint of going to the gym all day everyday for a few months (unfortunately, my children were getting sick every time I went, from the day care, so I had to stop going), I think I lost 20-30lbs during that stint, but I gained it and a TON more back when I got pregnant with my third son.

So, I was eating vegetarian, I was doing yoga almost every night and I was feeling pretty good! I was down from a 24 to a 16, in what felt like overnight. I was ecstatic!  I COULD lose weight! It was almost EASY!

Eventually, after eating vegetarian, which was mainly fresh fruit and vegetables (I'm not a fan of pasta and I had done low-carb once, so I understood that our bodies don't need, and can't handle a ton of carbs, but you can't low-carb, healthily while being a vegetarian, and I don't really believe in the traditional low-carb 'diets') I realized one day that I couldn't eat sugar, I hadn't noticed that I had basically stopped eating anything sugary, and when I tried, it was just too much for my body to process and I ended up being sick most of the night.

This was really good news! Sugar wasn't appealing! I was losing weight! Things seemed pretty good! Then my marriage started falling part, and life got *very* chaotic. I was angry and upset, and the yoga, while relaxing and very 'zen', wasn't keeping me very zen. I decided that I needed something more. I needed something to compliment the yoga. And I found it one night while driving home from yoga...I drove past a building that had a lit-up sign that read 'Triple Boxing'.

"Holy shit! That's it...that's what I need! I need to HIT things!"

So, I walked into the gym and there was a boxing ring and heavy bags and dudes who were in MUCH better shape than I have ever been in, doing things that I didn't even understand, and they looked pretty 'thuggy' and I was intimidated, but I was also *pissed*.

"Hey can I help you?" Said the nice-enough looking young kid behind the counter, in front of all sorts of fight trophies and fighting gear.

"Yeah, I'm an angry creature and I need to hit things...how do I sign up for classes?"

He laughed and grabbed the class sheet and said "have you ever done boxing before?" I told him no, I had done a silly 'kickboxing' class at a women's gym, but this looked way more fun and more up my alley.

Then the owner walked over. He was an older gentleman of Persian decent and he introduced himself to me and let me know that he was a boxing coach from way back and had trained championship and even olympic fighters and how could he help me. I told him that I was looking to learn to fight. I wanted to get in better shape than I was in, and I was angry and needed an outlet. I currently did Yoga, but I wanted something more.  He told me about Muay Thai and Jiu Jitsu. I wasn't keen on the JiuJitsu, but the Muay Thai sounded perfect--it WAS kick boxing. He then informed me "We don't dance here. This isn't a 'fitness' gym, we train athletes, we train FIGHTERS. You want to dance, you go down the street to L.A. Fitness, we don't do that here."

"No, sir" I replied. "I want to fight, I want you to help me be in good shape, be fit, and athletic."

"Ok, then follow me, I will show you around."

I started going to the boxing gym. Every day, without fail. I was 215lbs when I started boxing. I was the fattest person in the room, I didn't really give a shit. Running in circles for the warm up was hard and I wanted to die when we finally got 'warmed-up', but I couldn't let that room full of in-shape men see me like that, so I pretended that I was keeping up just fine.  There were few women in the classes, but there was one in particular who had tattoos all over her arms and fought like she meant it. The first time I saw her I thought to myself "I want to be her." So, I started trying...and she and I became good friends.

In The Beginning

When I was 27 and pregnant with my third child, I went to my last doctor visit and, as is the case for all prenatal appointments, stepped onto the scale.  The nice nurse went to the 200 mark and tried to move the smaller marker up.

"Oh, you're going to have to go more than that."
"Wow. Really? Are you sure?"
"yeah."

She went to 250, then the smaller marker just kept going up, finally at 15, it stopped.

You might as well have handed me a neon sign that read "265lbs--FATTY FATTY FATTYCAKES!"
I was ashamed, I was depressed, I was tired.

I kept my hopes up, and thought "Oh I'll lose at least 20 of that after the baby is born!" I ended up losing 13, 15 total 6 weeks after delivery...woo, 250lbs. I was wearing a size 3X, 24 jeans. I was bigger than my mother and my sister. I had always been smaller than either of them, except now...now I was the fattest.

*Flashback*

Growing up I was the skinniest person in the family, and by skinniest, I mean normal weight. I was a typical kid, average weight, height, etc.  My family, however, they were all overweight. My father was morbidly obese (6'4", 350+lbs), my mother was too (5'9", 250+ lbs), and my sister was always on the 'chunky' side even when she was younger. I guess I got the 'good' genes...however, in my family, this meant I had the 'bad' genes. I was made fun of by my family members, my sister picked on me and resented me. And my mother, between making me her favorite daughter and her arch nemesis, well...you can imagine what that does to a kid.
Because of this, I thought that I needed to be fat...so, I started eating. I ate everything I could. I begged for Dinty Moore beef stew because they said it would stick to your ribs, and everyone in my family teased me about how I looked like an Ethiopian kid because you could see all my ribs...so I wanted something that would put weight on me. Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it), I played softball, so I was pretty active, all the time...this doesn't bode well for gaining weight when you're 10.
Eventually, however, mother nature took over. I hit puberty, with a sugar addiction, a skewed self-image and genes that wanted me to hold on to energy in case we had a famine and I was having a baby...(would have made an EXCELLENT cavewoman, let me tell you!) So, as a teenager, I ballooned up. I was still smaller than everyone in my family, but now I was 'fat' and I got teased less by my family, but more by my schoolmates. But I wanted my family to love and respect me...so, I kept eating.

I was also a nerd, who discovered computers and video games, so I sat around a lot too. And ate, and played video games...and ate some more. Eventually, I went to boarding school, where I couldn't eat all the time, and I was outdoors and active a lot; working at a horse barn is good exercise. So, I lost a little weight. My mother commented on how pretty I was looking, and my sister resented me more. I couldn't win...someone was going to hate me. It seemed like that someone was going to be myself.

After puberty took hold and I was a 'chunky' teenager, I met my first *real* boyfriend.  He was 22, I was 17 and I was in love. I wasn't unhappy and bored any longer, so I started eating less. I also lost a TON of weight. For the first time in a VERY long time, I could see my own rib cage. I was, for the first time ever, a size 8. I had been in plus sizes as long as I could remember, mainly 12's and 14's, but when you're 17, those are big numbers. And finally I was in a 'normal girl' size. I had always wanted to be a normal teenager, who doesn't? And finally I felt like I was there.

That relationship went south and I moved back in with my mother and started eating again. Health and fitness were no where near my radar. I was still being told how skinny I was by my mother (who, at the time was an 18/20) and i was a 12-14 at this point. I got up to a 16 and met my future husband. He didn't mind a chubby girl and I was happy to meet him.  However, this time, happiness didn't bring with it weight loss, it brought with it a wedding and babies.

And over the next decade I would go from a size 16 to a size 24, up and down, roller coaster-ing the whole way. I would jump up to the 20's and then lose some weight, get pregnant, jump back up to the 20's, rinse repeat.

Finally, things got so bad that I got fed up. I was angry and unhappy with what I had allowed to slip by in my life, and some things were about to change.