*crickets*

Wow! I'm not talking to myself afterall! I recently changed my settings for the comments section and didn't realize I had several waiting for my approval! Made me feel good, I was getting paranoid about spilling my guts without any kind of feedback from anyone. So, thank you if you have left a comment for me in the past month or so, I just now found them all tonight! On Tucker's blog, it notifies me via email when I have a comment waiting for approval so I need to do some poking around on this one and fix the problem. I am so not computer, or blog, savvy!

My Answer.

Now that I have managed to blab about this over several posts, I do believe this will be the last. If anyone is still hanging in there, thank you for reading my verbal diarrhea. I didn't purposely drag this out, my intention was to make one post but I just kept thinking of more things I needed and wanted to say.

I reached my "OH, HELL NO" weight last summer and I remember trying to figure out what I was going to do. I love eating low carb, problem was, I wasn't sticking with it long enough for it to work for me. I needed to do something more strict, something with faster results because I am a total instant gratification junkie. Patience is not a virtue of mine.


I want to preface the unveiling of what program I am doing by saying that I researched the hell out of this before I started. I had multiple online friends who were successful on this plan, and come to find out, a handful of relatives as well. I have been doing the homeopathic version of the hCG (aka Simeon's Protocol) diet. Please be aware that there are all kinds of imitation versions of this diet out there, most of which are a complete debacle of the original program. Other than taking the homeopathic supplement rather than prescription, I have followed the original program written by Dr. Simeons in the 1950s.

In a nutshell, it is a low calorie, low fat, low carbohydrate diet in conjuntion with taking a homeopathic hCG supplement (it can also be done by taking actual hCG, which is prescription medicine).

I am a skeptic by nature, and a large part of me didn't believe this was going to work for me. In fact, I would go so far as to say that I was going to try it to prove it doesn't work or that I would feel like crap on it. When I asked my mom, who has her doctorate in homeopathic medicine, if she could obtain the supplement for me, she was skeptical as well.

The program works in "rounds", meaning you follow the restrictive diet for approximately three weeks and then maintain your new weight for six weeks and then you repeat until you have reached your goal weight. My first round I lost 20 pounds! That was enough to convince my mom to start the diet as well. To date, I have lost nearly 50 pounds and my mom has lost nearly 60! I am closing in on my goal and I am thinking I should be there around June. I feel fantastic, even when I am on the restrictive/weight loss part of the program.

We have been so excited about our losses and how great we feel that we decided to start offering this at our clinic. I don't want these weight loss posts to be misconstrued as advertisements for our business, but if anyone would like more information about the program we offer, you can email us at hhcgquestions @ gmail dot com.

For the first time in years, I feel hopeful and confident that I can be thin for a lifetime. For me, this was the answer I had been searching for and I am so glad I decided to try one last time to succeed. I am still in the process of losing, but I will post some before and during pictures soon!

Disclaimer.

For the past twelve years (has it really been that long?), I have carried around a disclaimer for my weight. I have worked a casual "I haven't always been this way" into conversation more times than I care to admit when talking to new(er) people in my life. For some reason, I have found it necessary to let people know I haven't always been an obese, out of shape person.

I used to be thin.
I used to run on a regular basis.
I used to be a size four.
Used to be. Used to be. Used to be.

As if that would somehow make things different. As if that disclaimer would make me exempt from judgement. The truth is, if I was talking to someone who didn't care to know me at my size, then I shouldn't care to know them at all.

That's easy to say, but it's hard to do. I do care what people think. Sure, it's easier to write somebody off if they are shallow enough to judge on appearance alone, but that doesn't mean that it won't affect your self esteem to be rejected in such a manner.

Yet, I continued to try to validate myself and excuse what I had become. I continued to seek others' approval and I continued to place blame where it didn't belong.

Blame my age.
Blame my job.
Blame my hormones.
Blame my stress.
Blame my happiness.
Blame my lack of willpower and self control.
Blame the fact that I'd rather watch Food Network than do Yoga Booty Ballet.
Blame, Blame, Blame.

But things are changing and I am excited. Once my goals have been reached, my disclaimer will remain the same, although the intent will be profoundly different.

I haven't always been this way.

I haven't always been this motivated.
I haven't always been this excited.
I haven't always been this hopeful.
I haven't always been this healthy.

....to be continued.

We Interrupt This Saga....

with a quick post about my latest read. Yes, it's only March 14th and I've already read March's book! Well, I skimmed a lot of it because I found out it really wasn't what I was looking for. The book was The New Strong-Willed Child by Dr. James Dobson.

I wanted to read it to help shed light on Mr. Tucker Shay's stubborness and strong willed nature. Come to find out, my definition of "strong-willed" and the type of child the book addresses are world's apart. I did pick up some helpful general parenting tips, but otherwise I didn't really feel like the book pertained to us.

I know that was a really crappy synopsis and book review, but there it is. Just didn't really get into it, but I am totally excited about my next read!

The next chapter of my weight loss journey coming soon! (if anyone is even reading, haha).

Mind Chatter

So, after reading A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, I decided that one of the parts of my life that needed to be rewritten was my physical health and appearance. If I changed my outward self, I was certain my inner self would follow. I would flourish and grow. I would inspire and teach. And you know what? It's happening and I love it.

But let's go back to the beginning, shall we? And as a reminder, Donald Miller says in his book that we have to do things that are uncomfortable in order to grow, and this post most definitely fits in that category.

I have done countless diets in the past. It all started in high school when I stopped playing softball. It was okay to be 160 pounds when I was playing a sport, sometimes it's nice to have a little weight to throw around (I am 5'6", by the way, in case you don't know me in real life). But it was not okay with me to be 160 when I was done playing and had retired my cleats.

Cue Jenny Craig. I started going to Jenny Craig on a weekly basis. At your weekly appointment, you weigh, talk with your counselor and then choose your prepackaged menu for the week. Aside from the enrollment fee, you have to pay weekly for your foods. The average price per week (and remember, this was circa 1995) was probably $90. The food was okay, there were some things I really loved (French toast with berries, yum!) and there were some things that were vile (oatmeal raisin bar). It took me five months, but I returned to school for my senior year at 130 pounds. I accomplished this, by the way, at the same time I worked at the snack bar at Crestview Country Club. How is that for determination?

Knowing what I do about health and nutrition now, I would never advocate someone going to Jenny Craig. Why? Their foods are largely (genetically modified) soy based (very bad for you, despite what some manufacturers claim) and packaged in plastic containers that are often meant to be microwaved. Plastics leach into foods and are toxic to our bodies, mimicking estrogen and causing a host of health problems. I never microwave in plastic and I have replaced all of my food storage containers with glass. There is some seriously scary stuff going on with our food and food products out there (non-stick pans, plastics, soy, high fructose corn syrup, etc.), but getting on my soapbox about that is not really related to this post, so I will step down until another day...

Ahem. Where was I?

Oh, yes. I was finally skinny and going back for my senior year. I went to a small high school, a whopping 96 kids in my graduating class. I had always been what I would call a floater (no, this is not a poop joke). I fit in with a variety of cliques and just kind of floated between groups. I was friends with the popular girls, I was friends with the nerds, I was friends with the average Joe's. I was just everyone's friend, plain and simple. But I was almost never noticed by the boys. Until I came back skinny.

One would think that would be awesome, right? The whole bad teenage movie of the nerdy girl turned total hotness and homecoming queen happening in your own life? Okay, not total hotness and homecoming queen (however, Snowball Queen nominee, is that close enough?), but you know what I mean. I was finally noticed. And I hated it.

It made me feel resentful and jaded. Why in the world would I give some jerk the time of day just because he is suddenly interested now that my size is smaller? Seriously? How shallow! That Marilyn Monroe quote comes to mind, "...if you can't handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don't deserve me at my best." I didn't hear that quote until I was an adult but it definitely sums up how I felt.

Enter, stage left: my first boyfriend. Long story short: we dated for a year, we broke up. Should have been end of story, right? Wrong. His parents said horrible, horrible things about me that got back to me (small town, remember?) and their words affected me very profoundly. Remember the girl I was? I was a nice, naive girl and always rooted for the underdog. I did not deserve the hateful things they said. As an adult, and especially as a mom, I can see how they were huge jerks and it was their problem, not mine, but the 18 year old Me couldn't see that. Present day Katy would have told them where to stick it.

Curious as to what they said? I was 145 pounds (had gained a bit back) and as they were convincing their son to end our relationship, they decided to hit me below the belt and attack my physical appearance. The phrase that affected me the most was, "she's fat and she's just going to get fatter." Yep. That was their entire case against me. Kudos to them.

Hearing that crushed me more than I can really explain. I was so fortunate in school to be in the role of "everyone's friend," that I never had to deal with being teased or picked on. This was really my first experience with anything bad being said about me, and it was hard. It was very hard. Their words became my new inner dialogue and I began to believe it. I let those mean words become the thing I would repeat to myself several times a day.

Those words kept me from eating a morsel for two entire weeks. I dropped weight. Fast. My parents threatened to hospitalize me if I didn't start eating. So I would pretend to take bites, scoot food around on my plate, cover it with my napkin, etc. I lost twenty pounds in two weeks. Anytime I felt hungry, I would just think about what they said, and would instantly lose my appetite.

And then the town started talking again. "psssst..Katy Schrag is anorexic, have you seen her?" And you know what that did? It fueled my fire. It kept me going down that path, I never wanted to be called fat again. I did all kinds of messed up things including drinking mouthwash and syrup of ipecac to make myself vomit (which it didn't work, it just gave me an upset stomach for an entire day), handfuls of diet pills daily, diuretics, starving myself for days at a time, not sleeping because of the ephedra in the diet pills, hours upon hours of exercise...you get the idea.

And that, my friends, is how I became the overexercising, eating disordered person I referenced in my previous post. To be continued, yet again......

Worth the Weight?

I really don't like talking about my weight. It's uncomfortable and embarrassing and obsessing over it has consumed way too much of my brain activity. For the past twelve years I have really struggled and I am excited that I am finally making progress in the right direction, and for the first time in a long time, I feel like I can meet (and maybe even exceed) my goals.

When I met Ryan, I was a size 4, 126 pounds, and ran on a regular basis. To the outside world, I appeared to be extremely healthy. Except I was exactly the opposite of healthy. I was starving myself for several days, and when I would finally eat, it would be total crap like Cheez-Its and Dr. Pepper. Then I would overexercise (we're talking like 3 hours on the treadmill) to compensate. I also took evil little diet pills called Diet Fuel and diuretics daily. Oh, and passed out in the shower on a weekly basis. Oh, and lest I forget, I was a bitch more often than I was nice.

(Katy-Food)+Diet Pills=Not A Nice Girl

The Skinny Bitch

After I met Ryan, I didn't want to be the annoying girl who only ordered salads or who picked at my food on dates so I started eating like a normal person again. And then before I knew it, my portion sizes were mirroring his. My weight was increasing at an alarming rate. I'm talking like thirty pounds in a year. Over our dating years, my weight continued to creep up and even though I was aware of what was happening, it was almost like I didn't care and was powerless to stop it anyways. Maybe in a sense I was testing our relationship to see if Ryan would love me fat like he loved me skinny? Hmm....

One year of dating, up about 30 pounds. I remember feeling so fat that weekend, I had just gone up another size in pants.

Apparently he did, because he proposed at my heaviest and I immediately began planning the big wedding weight loss. I decided what size I wanted to be at my wedding and ordered my dress five sizes smaller than what I was. What? I work well with deadlines.

I lost 50 pounds in 5 months by doing a low carbohydrate diet. I felt fantastic! I fit into my dress and even had to have it taken in a little bit! Booya!

Wedding weight loss success!

After the wedding, I promised myself I would never go back. But I did. The weight crept up a little at a time and soon I was back to square one. Seven years of marriage and two kids later, my weight seemed to hover at the same place, not getting worse but certainly not getting better. After weaning Tucker, my weight shot up about twenty pounds very quickly, I guess because I didn't adjust my eating habits when my milk production decreased. When I stepped on the scale last summer and saw that I weighed what I did at delivery with both kids, I knew something had to change.

A week before Chloe was born, I weighed the same last summer in a non-pregnant state. Really, Katy? Really?

....to be continued.