The start of my weight journaling.

I know there are a lot of following weight loss everywhere on the net, but I feel I need to write about this as I have been battling my weight practically all my life. I feel I do not have a distorted view of how a body should look, yet I have been unhappy with my body for most of my life. I married young (19) and started having children fast (20). I wasn't thin, but I liked my body back then. I was a smoker for 23 years which helped keep my weight down although I was always about 20 pounds overweight. Once I turned 40 I quit smoking but I started eating to replace my cigarettes. Now I am 50 and am easily 70 pounds overweight. I turned 50 in March and I had a goal of losing 50 by my 50th birthday, but it has come and gone with my weight yo-yoing. My family is throwing me a 50th birthday party this month so I thought since I didn't lose the weight in time for my birthday I thought I'd do it for my party. I have failed once again. So this is why I thought I might start blogging about it so that others can view my struggle and maybe I'll be humiliated into staying on task and finally get this under control. I have been yo-yoing during my entire 40's using many techniques. I think my first start was in a competition with my sister, her daughter and 2 friends. We all put $100 dollars in and did the competition for 6 weeks. My sister and I tied with both losing 19 pounds so we split the $500.00. We then continued to weigh in every week to try and keep losing weight. However I went the other way and put my weight on and then some. So then I thought maybe we could do marathons so that this would be my exercise to help get the weight off. Well we have done 2 half marathons walking and I am proud of my acomphishments, however, it hasn't helped my weight at all. I have done a couple competitions with people at work and even won one, but my weight is back up again. I have done many things with friends trying to get this weight off, but just keep taking off and putting back on. I have been to weight watchers and took a class my work offered entitled Eat Well For Life where I learned many good things, but I just haven't implemented any of them. I would love to make a life style change and eat right and exercise on a regular basis so I can be happy with my body and of course reap the benefits of being fit. For those of you who truly know me you know I plan to live into my 90's so I don't want to be in bad health. I know there is always an underlying problem that keeps the weight on and I think I know what it is, but I want to try and explore possibilities and get to the root of the problem. I have no desire to be too thin as I think that would make me look older than what I am. The weight has made me look older for so many years so I definately don't want to do that to myself. So I am hoping that I will know when to quit as I do have an addictive personality and I don't want to go too far.



So I am hoping this will help and I am also hoping others might post some words of encouragement or maybe some constructive criticism or any kind of pointers would be great. Welcome to my world of weight and my journey to a healthier and happy body for my 50th year of life.