In March of 2009 I was surfing the web when I came across a website called Livestrong. It is a calorie counting website that allows you to input and track the foods you eat on a daily basis to see how many calories you are consuming on any given day. You can set your own calorie goals and track any activities you do as well for more accuracy. Did I mention that it was FREE?
Well ... I tried it. I started to punch in what I had eaten that day ... it wasn't a pretty picture ... but it was sorta fun exploring the site and all the neat tools and gadgets it offered to help keep you motivated. I joined something they called the LOSE WEIGHT dare and I started to read what other people were saying/doing ... wow ... a lot of them were struggling just like me.
Now I was a 50 year old woman (at the time) and grossly overweight, how much I did not know, because I avoided the scale at all costs. It was like, if I didn't know how much I weighed, it didn't count .... or something .... all I knew was that my feet which used to swell only in the summer were swollen BAD all year and my ankles had started to itch. I had chronic rashes where people shouldn't have rashes (TMI I know but this story is REAL not make believe) I was having increasing difficulty walking even few lousy feet and shopping had become something I feared ... a lot. Going to a mall was RIGHT OUT ... walks with my husband ... NOT A CHANCE. My life was one big icecream tub and bags of chips ... I was killing myself and I didn't even know why. My house was a mess cause I couldn't do the housework ... and I had to take the stairs one at a time in BOTH directions and it took me a good 5 minutes to catch my breath if going up.
It was exhausting just surviving and trying to hide all this (who was I kidding) from my family was equally exhausting.
But then we come back to March 2009 and a chance encounter with a random website while sitting on my butt surfing the web with a bag of chips in one hand and an ice cream scoop in the other ....
Sooo I woke up on the second day looking forward to tracking what I ate for an entire day to see what I was consuming ... I was curious. I was also READY to lose weight, I just didn't realize it yet. I played around with the weight graphs and charts to see *what if* .. I started to fantasize about how it would be to be 50 pounds lighter ... 100 pounds ... I couldn't quite imagine it. Before I knew it the day was over ... I had NOT had the usual binge session with chips and ice cream or whatever ... in fact my calories were only about 2000 or so ... and I wasn't hungry. I had been too busy playing online to think about snacking.
Next day .. I decided I needed a benchmark .. soo ... I got on the scale. Then I cried ... and cried ... I KNEW I was heavy but I did NOT know I weighed more than 300 pounds.
325 pounds to be exact .... and the date? March 25 2009 or 3/25 2009
I weighed the same as the date.
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