After spending probably in excess of 1000(!) hours READNG blogs over the past several years, I am finally jumping in! I'll list my favorite blogs someday - I've found some fantastic ones!

Here is the backstory to this beginning. I was thin throughout my early childhood. When I was in third grade, I became quite ill and was hospitalized. As part of my recovery, the doctor recommended that my mom send me to school with a snack to be eaten mid-morning. However, snacks weren't part of Mrs. Fleming's classroom routine and I was sent next door to an empty classroom to eat my two cookies and drink my cherry kool aid in seclusion. I felt embarrassed to have to go over there and ate as quickly as I could, fearing someone would walk in on me and demand to know what this kid was doing skipping class for a cookie break! Somehow, I walked away from all that with a tendency to hide my eating.

Most of us hated Junior High School (now called Middle School - why does my daughter LOVE it?!) and I was as insecure about everything in my life as everyone else was. By eighth grade, my pants began to get a bit tight and as mom and I shopped for new pants at McAlpins, I vividly remember the shame of my new pant's size. I may have been imagining it, but I felt like my mom was as ashamed of them (or me) as I was.

My weight continued a slow march upward and then I'd find a crash diet to try and gain control. My weight became my biggest struggle. I yo-yo'd with the best of them. I felt enormous, but as I look back on pictures from childhood through college, I was a very normal size in reality.

While in my twenties, I stumbled onto Geneen Roth's book, "When Food is Love" and the light bulb went on as to some of the reasons why I overate. I realized that the issues were way deeper than I had known and that my eating was a sign of some internal baggage. I was addicted to food. After getting married and having a child after thirty, my weight began edging up even higher. Now, I wasn't a normal size in reality at all. Mom passed away during this time and I wonder if I overate to prove to myself that she wasn't "the boss of me" anymore. Now I could eat without fear of her disapproval. I also found the Weigh Down Workshop in my thirties. While I would no longer recommend the program due to the founder's quite unorthodox views on some quite obvious biblical truths, I did begin to see how God could bring healing and obedience into this area of my life. Since becoming a Jesus follower as a senior in high school, He was the One I wanted to please in all areas of my life, including this one. The program teaches you how to only eat when you are hungry and to stop when you are full. Novel concept! In other words, just eat like skinny people do all the time. I lost 45 lbs on Weigh Down and then promptly gained them all back.

By my forties, I was at my all-time high and feeling quite hopeless in getting my weight under control and turned to Gastric Bypass Surgery in March of 2005. (That may be another post for another day!) Within nine months I had lost 115 pounds and felt great!

And now, in February of 2010, I have gained back 50 of those pounds. It has to stop now. I've come too far to go back to square one.

Which brings me to this blog. It will serve as a place to journal my thoughts on becoming healthy and eating well. (Though I don't promise not to write about just life in general!) And, just as importantly, it will create accountability as people know what I am doing. So, let the fun begin!