Why am I here? (Act one)

What brought me back to blog land? I blame my friends Meredith and Misty. Nearly two months ago, Meredith invited me out to a coffee meeting with Jen from priorfatgirl.com and several of her friends that are on weight loss journeys along with her.

Allow me to step back in time a bit. I've been overweight for much of my adult life. Not huge, but definitely not healthy and not where I want to be. (How I got there is an entire post in itself, so I'll save that for later.) This weight issue has been on my mind daily for over a decade, to which I'm sure anyone who has carried around any extra poundage in our society can relate. It's in your face daily when you get up and look in the mirror to brush your teeth. It's in your face on billboards and magazine pages and tv shows; the images of what we should look like. It's hard to ignore.

In early 2008, a friend at work mentioned to me that some others were doing a weight loss pool. We would each throw in 10 bucks, have an initial weigh-in, a mid-point weigh in, and a final weigh-in after a few months. The person that had lost the highest percentage of their weight (to keep it a fair contest) would win the moola. I thought, 'what the heck,' and threw in my cash. I was at a point where I was completely sick of myself in many ways (not just my weight), and this was a step in the right direction.

The guy I was dating at the time had a tendency to get very caught up in ideas and run with them, usually dragging me right along with, for better or for worse. He jumped on the weight-loss bandwagon right along with me, which was awesome. We started to eat healthy(er), be more active, and focus on the goal of winning me that cash! Skip forward four months. I kicked some ass. I lost 30ish pounds in that time. I felt awesome. I won the contest. I was proud of myself for the first time in a long time. The best part was that people at work were noticing and commenting on nearly a daily basis.

Then my world caved in on me. I'll save you the gory details, but let's just say it involved a breakup of a very long relationship (think 9 years), and what felt like the collapse of my entire being. I continued to lose weight, but not in a healthy way. I simply did not feel like eating. I would have an apple and some crackers for the entire day. I went on like this for a couple of weeks, lost another 10 pounds, and felt horrible (mentally and physically). Then I started enjoying too many nights out, too many beers, too many snacks. I ate to deal with my pain and packed back on a few pounds here and there.

Fast forward another 8 or 9 months. I went on my first date with my guy. It was blissful. Well, as blissful as it could be considering we were and are both in major states of flux in our lives. So we ate. We ate because it was something we had in common - a big love of cooking and a huge love of eating. We ate because we were celebrating our new found joy in sharing time together. All of this celebrating started to add up and we began to pack on the pounds.

Now, I won't speak for him, but let's just say that I gained back almost all of the weight that I had worked so hard to lose a year or so prior. I got mad at myself. I kicked myself in the butt every time I got dressed in the morning and felt my pants a little tighter. I mumbled hating words to myself as I ripped a hole in my jeans simply by getting into the high seat of my guy's truck (they had grown too tight). I cursed myself every time I had to buy new clothes in a larger size. Just a year and a half prior, I had donated all sorts of clothes in those sizes when I had LOST the weight. Now here I was gaining it all back again?!

So, early April, Meredith invited me to the coffee group. I went, semi-reluctantly, semi-excitedly. I'm shy until I am sure that I can let loose around people. But I went, and I'm so grateful that I did. There were twenty or so amazing women, of all ages, sitting around a large circle of tables. I was nervous at first, but soon go into the positive energy that was radiating off of every single one of those women. It was obvious that they were there with love in their hearts. No one was judging anyone. They were supportive and inspiring. I was hooked.

(to be continued...)