Now that you have the gist of my background, allow me to explain what happened on the first day of my journey to find myself…

I have always wanted to be a mom, a young mom at that. But I knew in my heart that it would be selfish to put our baby, myself, my husband and our family through what would no doubt be a high risk pregnancy due to my weight. So I would always use the phrases, “someday when I lose weight” and “when I lose weight”. Let’s face it… at 370 pounds there isn’t much of a quality of life there. I struggled to get in and out of bed or even roll over. I couldn’t fit comfortably or at all in a movie theater seat, a plane seat or a booth. I could barely walk or stand for long periods of time. Nothing fit and I had a difficult time finding anything that looked remotely what a 29 year old would wear in a size 28/30. I had pretty much accepted that this was my life since I could never seem to make that lifestyle change that I so desperately wanted.

Then it happened… my third friend announced her pregnancy within a couple months of two of my other friends. How could I genuinely be happy for any of them when I was feeling so sorry for myself and my situation… a situation that I created and a situation that only I had the capability to change. After I came to this realization I told my husband right then and there that this was it. I couldn’t live like this anymore… because in all honesty I wasn’t even living, I was just letting the days pass by.

The next day we joined Weight Watchers for my millionth time. I had hoped it would be the last time, but given my track record I highly doubted that. We joined a Monday night class that was geared toward people who had 50 or more pounds to lose, something I had never done before. Suddenly I was surrounded by people who had struggled with being overweight most of their lives and understood that our “normal” was to eat an entire loaf of fresh baked bread or a ½ gallon of ice cream or a bag of pretzels in one sitting just because. It was definitely a very motivating first meeting.

Afterwards my husband and I went out to dinner. Now, as was my usual, the first meal after a weigh-in was always my “cheat meal”. As my husband and I perused the menu he had decided on a salad. When I asked why he wasn’t cheating he simply said because he doesn’t want to. Well a meal of rye toast with butter on the side, egg whites and fresh fruit later… I didn’t either.