Trying to get myself back

That summer we went away to Israel for a few weeks. A graduation/honeymoon/anniversary trip all in one. I was so ashamed to look at the pictures of myself from that time. I hated what I looked like and knew I needed to fix it somehow.

With the terrible economy, neither of us had jobs, so we moved back to our hometown and started looking. Through a connection, my husband finally got a job and started working. This gave us a little more flexibility, and I started trying to fix my body. I saw a doctor and was told I needed to get my weight under control, my cholesterol was way too high, it was not safe. I already knew this. I just wish she had connected the dots then and tested me for PCOS, but she did not.

Lots of tears and struggles that year. I joined a gym. I worked out an hour almost every day. Both cardio and weights. I changed the foods I ate (still probably ate too much) I started looking at calories and became even more disgusted with how I had eaten the previous year. I ate a lot of soy protein (didn't know that I was sabotaging myself) and tried to cut down. I weighed myself multiple times a day to see how what I ate affected my body. I cut out sugar and used sugar substitutes (again, I didn't realize that this was not so good either). But the scale wouldn't budge. I didn't have a job, and I was getting depressed. Finally I gave in and bought diet pills. I do not recommend this approach. I was very sensitive to caffeine and could not even take a full dose. When I took a half a dose, I was in bed all day feeling terribly ill. But it worked. I lost some weight and was willing to feel so sick to look better. Then, of course, my tolerance grew and I needed to take more pills to lose the weight. I stopped taking them and tried to see what else I could do.

I learned that I was eating too late at night, and if I stopped eating earlier the scale would be "friendlier" come morning.Slowly, slowly, I was getting some weight off. I made micro goals for myself and pushed myself to achieve them. Instead of saying I want to weight X, I said I want to get down .5 lb. It could take a week or two, but eventually I would lose it. It was excruciating. I chewed sugar free gum all the time (again with the artificial sweeteners) so I would not snack. And I was finally seeing a change and felt good (to some degree) about it!