Inspired Again!

My blog this week goes back to dieting, yet again! I have struggled with my weight all my life.  I used to roll my eyes at women who said that when they got married, they were a size 4!  I think I was born bigger than that!

Well, actually I wasn’t, but I just seemed to be bigger than anyone else I knew my age.  When we were kids, we each had a list of chores to do and mine was the only one that included exercise.  My clothes were known as ‘chubbies’ sizes.  We had to line up and get weighed in grade 6.  I was the only one at 100 lbs.

I kind of got control of my weight when I went to college because I could only afford to eat twice a day.  Breakfast was the powdered ‘Instant Breakfast’—not the package—I used to open up all the packages into a container and take two tablespoons full in hot water.  Dinner was a chicken drumstick.  On Sundays, my big treat was Kraft Dinner.  I couldn’t afford milk or butter, so I just used some of the water I boiled the noodles in.  It was fine. But, of course when I started to work and could afford all the food I was missing, I ate!

Later, a co-worker got me into Weight Watchers and I got down to 123 lbs.  Too thin, for me, actually, I truly am not built that way and, of course, couldn’t maintain it.  I lost weight for my wedding, lost weight before I got pregnant with my first child, you get the picture.  I can lose weight, but can’t seem to keep it off.

Late in 2009, Cavan and I went on the ‘cookie diet,’ so named because the doctor that prescribed it, sold (among other things), these packages of cookies that were one meal.  Essentially, every meal was to be about 300 calories, so I lived on cookies, granola bars and frozen meals each under 300 calories.  It worked.  By March, Cavan and I were each down 60 lbs.

That, of course, did not stick either.  Now, I haven’t put all of the weight back on, but almost!

This year, I had great hopes for the weight belly diet.  I did feel better, but the weight wasn’t coming off like I had hoped, so I went off the diet.

My oldest daughter has inspired me, though.  God love her, she is built like me.  I don’t know what her weight got up to, but she has lost 76 pounds and she looks amazing!  She can exercise more than I can because I have to work with my MS limitations, but we are trading Paleo recipes and trying inventive ways to make things that fit in the Paleo diet.

I’ll try to stick to this one.  There is certainly a lot to eat!  I don’t think I have eaten so much fruit and veggies in a day, as I do now and I don’t miss the grains and still get to have my beef, pork, chicken, salmon.....

Let’s see how it goes with Cavan and me going away this weekend!  Pretty much everywhere has something I can eat, I’m sure.

So, God bless and here’s praying that we all meet our challenges head on this week!