My Turn to Come Clean

Today's stats:
calories in: 1484
exercise: not much. walked about 15 minutes total, to and from my car a couple of times

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Okay, here we go. I've started my diet today. I don't know how much of a diet it actually is. I think its more watching my portion control. That's always been my big problem (no pun intended).

Since Lisa was brave enough to do it, I will, too. I don't have the nifty table that she does, though, because my preferred website doesn't offer it (www.caloriecount.about.com). Here are my starting stats:
Starting weight: 260 lbs
Height: 5'10"
Goal weight: 170 lbs (90 pounds total loss)
Initial goal: -10%, to 242 lbs

Mini-goal #1 - Drink 64 oz of water per day and restrict myself to no more than 3 DDPs a day

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I've been complaining about my weight for forever. I can't remember when I started to be overweight, but I remember being more solid than the other girls in 5th grade. Various parts of my family run big, so I'm working against several things here: genetics, lazyness, lack of money (to buy healthy food), etc. I've been trying to become more active since 2005, when I started back to undergrad. I was walking at least a mile a day (around campus), so I actually lost the freshman 15 instead of gaining it. I've been trying to eat healthy and watch more portion control off and on (more off than on) since 2007. I've been up and down a little bit since then, but always within 20 pounds total.

I hate being fat. I hate having to shop in the plus sizes (where all the designers think that you either want to wear grandma clothes or a circus tent). I hate finding cute clothes and only having a size 10 or 12 available. I hate having to squeeze in places made for smaller people than me (public toilet stalls are a place that immediately spring to mind). I want to be able to ride with my children on roller coasters and not worry about whether or not I'm going to fit in the seat. I want to be able to look down at my feet without having to bend forward (which is kind of a normal thing for girls, I would think) or suck in my stomach. I want my boobs to stick our further than my stomach, which is not the case right now. Also, I don't want to have weight-related diabetes, whichever type that is. My grandmother has it, my dad has it, my aunt and uncle have it, maybe my other uncle has it... I don't want heart or cholesterol or blood pressure problems, either (although we all know that those aren't necessarily weight related).

I want to be pretty. Okay, okay, fine, I want to *feel* pretty. I do occasionally, but not all the time. I want to wear cute clothes. I want to be able to have more than two pairs of jeans (its hard to find good jeans that fit comfortably).

Okay, so there's my sob story. It's a lot of me feeling sorry for myself. I got myself into this mess over the past 28 years, and there's not a magic wand to wave that will reset it for me (I think video games have ruined us a little bit). Its going to take hard and dedication and just a little (or maybe a lot) of ass kicking. I need someone to kick it for me sometimes. Lisa, maybe you can do that for me, and I'll do it for you. I've tried losing weight before and it petered out. Maybe having someone working on the same thing with me will help me with it. It definitely doesn't help that at the moment, my loving husband can eat anything he wants. He has to fight to keep weight on rather than the reverse.

Starting a diet right before the holidays is perhaps not the best idea, but neither is coming up with yet another excuse to put it off. I'll watch the amounts of what I eat for right now, and try to be consistent with entering the information into caloriecount.

My ultimate goal? Being happy with how I look, regardless of what that final weight ends up being. I also want to be a runner. I want to be able to take my dog out for a jog, or go for a run for a couple of miles. There's some nice scenery around here. I think it would be a good way to see it.