A little background

So, I've been overweight most of my life. I tried this diet and that diet and so on and so forth. In my early twenties (I'll be 35 next month) I lost about 70 lbs (by eating less and doing 60 minutes of cardio 5 days a week) which dropped me down to a size 14. I felt and looked great. But I got lazy. So, again.... I tried this diet and that diet, lost a little, gained a lot. I gained the 70 back and another 55. That's where I was last October when I got pregnant with our second child. For some reason, my body handles pregnancy really well (as far as weight gain). With my first daughter (born May 2006) I gained 12 lbs and was down a total of 40 (including the 12 I gained) after I had her. But, once I stopped breastfeeding, which had balanced out my horrible eating, I gained the 40 back. With my second daughter, who was born in August of this year, I ended up gaining no weight and am down 20 lbs after having her.

My plan was to continue to lose weight while I was on maternity. Unfortunately, my love of chips ahoy cookies and icecream has kept me from losing any additonal weight. Well, there was that 2 pounds for about a week. :-) I kid you not, I have eaten several bags of cookies. Luckily, I'm breastfeeding and that has offset the hundreds and hundreds of calories I've eaten in cookies over the last few weeks.

The diet was going to start when I went back to work. I went back to work on Monday, but only half days. So, then I decided (because I'm still eating those damn cookies) that I will start this coming Monday, when I go back full time. My rationale (excuse): I can be more organized with my eating. And I do eat better when I'm organized. The trick is staying that way. I struggle with staying organized in all aspects of my life.

But I'm turning over a new leaf. I've been blog surfing a little bit and came across a woman's blog detailing her weight loss. Funny enough, it was her picture that really struck me. She is posed with her horse. And that's the one thing that I can't do right now because of my weight that makes me really, really sad. So, her picture has been in the back of my head for the last week or so. So, tonight, I was checking things out and found my way to OSB (Operation Skinny Bitch). The name alone is awesome. Well, I wanted to join the bandwagon. What I didn't want to do is link it to my "regular" blog for all my friends and family to see. It's just not something I want to be brutally honest with them about. But here, where no one knows me and I've been sure to set up a separate email and blog and can't be linked back, I can be brutally honest! And I've learned the brutally honest "thing" from MckMama. I'm sure you've heard of her, she's quite popular!

And that's how I got here. At the moment, I am motivated and want to put my health first! For my daughters and my husband and for myself. I want to be the Mom that's out playing with her kids instead of sitting on the couch watching TV because she's too tired/lazy/out of shape to play with them. I want to be involved in their activities and not hide in the car because I'm too embarrassed of myself to be social with the other parents. I don't want my girls to have the "fat parents". I want to set a good example and teach them the proper way to eat and to teach them that exercise is just part of a normal daily routine, not a chore that must be dreaded. I want to shop in normal stores and wear cute trendy clothes. I want to like myself when I look in the mirror.

But most of all, I want to ride! Ride like I did when I was younger. I had horses until I was a freshman in college. I sure do regret letting that go. But, it's expensive to have horses and I had to commute to college and work two jobs. At that time I didn't realize it would be so difficult to have one again, financially speaking. And add to that my excessive weight, I just can't get on a horse. I weigh too much. When I made that realization a couple years ago I was devastated. But, apparently, not devastated enough to do much about it. But here I am. And that's where I want to be!

So let's see if I can do it right this time!