Falling off the wagon!

I haven't written in my blog for a very long time. There are many reasons. I'm enrolled in a college English course and the writing is tough and demanding of my precious time. I've become involved with another company and I'm helping them with their books and the training of their new bookkeeper. (Heaven help them!) I'm still working for the two other business I go to at least four times and week and now I've taken on the books of my boss's son. I have about a years worth of bookkeeping to catch up on. Yikes! And of course, I'm busily working on book number five, then throw in my birthday and Tim's and a quick weekend trip to Southern Utah to visit my dad and his wife, Edna plus Tim's father passed away and we spent a lot of Saturday's visiting him in the hospital--and you've got life at it's finest.

However, those are not the only reasons--which are very good reasons--for not writing in my blog, but the simplest reason and the straight forward one is that I've fallen off the wagon.

We've all seen people who've tried to improve their lives through weight loss, quitting smoking and drinking, stopping drug abuse and so on. And then they've seen them slip off their tenuous program and indulge in he behavior that got them in trouble in the first place. Somewhere in the back of my evil twin sister's mind, we look at them and say, "I knew they couldn't stick with it. They're so weak!" Come on, I know you've all heard that nasty little voice in the back of your head say something vicious like that. Or maybe not. Maybe it's just me. It's not that we like to see people fail at something, it's just that we don't want them to best us.

Well...I now know what it's like to slide off the wagon and back into patterns of behavior that are familiar yet destructive. Before Christmas I finally reached the middle pinnacle of my weight loss journey. 104 pounds. Although far from my goal, that seemed like a great milestone. But that's where it ended.

I know first hand what it feels like when a recovering alcoholic hears the call of the bottle which reaches out, enticing them back with the alluring feel of the liquid gold sliding down a parched throat. I know what a heroin addict must feel when they walk the streets and a dealer shoves bag of the white siren's powder under their nose. I know what seduction there is in having another smoker in the same room with you when you're craving a draw on that tobacco stick. I know because I'm also an addict.

I thought I'd concurred my addition, my obsession, my passion for FOOD! But after only eight months of strict obedience, I had not learned the basic lessons of control. I also realize that with an addiction to food, you can't completely shove it out of your life. It's around you everywhere. Your life is constantly bombarded with reasons to eat: Christmas, New Year's, birthdays, anniversaries, travel, funerals--grief. And if you haven't learned what it means to control the situation, then you'll slip off the wagon just as surely as a heroin addict or a recovering alcoholic. There really is no difference.

I then heard the other little voice in my head, the one that tells you that you really can't do it. You have no business trying to quit something or restructuring your life. You're just no good at it. We all have that voice as well. I listened when it told me "just one won't hurt." So I believed and fell. Just one box of Sees, just one pound of fantasy fudge, just one pound of honey baked ham and one pound of scalloped potatoes and one pound of pumpkin pie. Just one drink or two of egg nog and vanilla ice cream, just one more, and one more and...You get the picture.

Then there's another little voice (I'm full of them) that tells you "well now you've fallen off and lost your momentum and slipped up a few pounds, so what?" That's the voice I really hate. Because that's the voice I believe the most. "Yeah, you're right. I've really messed up. I knew I couldn't lose weight all along. You told me I couldn't do it and now you're proven me right." Boy! I hate it when I agree with myself. I sound like I'm slipping into existentialism. You know what that is, right? According to Wikipedia, "a philosophy that begins with a sense of disorientation and confusion in the face of an apparently meaningless or absurd world. Or in other words--nonsense!

I believed the nonsense that only my mind can produce. I believed a lie.

I believed the lie my existential mind (disoriented, confused, absurd) mind was telling me. So here I am. No longer at 104 pounds down. I won't bore you with the details of exactly how many pounds I added back on my bones, but enough to have me believing the lie--you've failed, you can't go on--you're a loser. (Well technically that would be NON-LOSER!)

What's great about Weight Watchers, (and this isn't a shameless plug) it that they help you see around the lies you tell yourself and help you through the barriers that keep you from taking the first step toward jumping back on the wagon. I'm still racing behind the wagon hoping it will slow down and let me catch up. No more excuses, no more rationalizations, it's my choice whether I eat low calorie filling foods or consume everything that's not nailed down. I'm still getting my feet under me. Still trying to push out the third voice and still trying. Period.

Thank goodness I didn't stop going to the gym. That's the only thing that's saved my bacon (no pork-fat jokes, please). I still go every morning, punish myself for an hour so that I don't climb into a ditch after falling off the wagon. So for the present, I'm still running behind the wagon, praying for the strength to fight another day. That's all we can ask out of life. And oh, one more thing--I need to forgive the little voices in my head and forgive myself for tripping. After all, that's all we want from life is a little forgiveness when we stumble and a hand up. That's what Weight Watchers does for me. They offer a hand and it's my choice to clasp it or not.Anywhoo, I still can see some improvement even though I'm running fast to catch up with myself. (Is that an existential statement?)

Weight -- Update!

On Friday, August 1, 2008, I achieved an 80 pound weight loss. (In a year’s time frame.) That’s E I G H T Y — 80 pounds of weight gone from off my body!!! That’s about the weight of a ten year old child. I’ve lost a ten year old!!! I should be ecstatic, elated, overjoyed, delighted, happy, thrilled, jumping for joy. So why, you might ask, am I crying?? Why do I shed bitter tears? Why am I depressed and despondent over losing E I G H T Y pounds?


Why---because I don’t yet look like Kate Moss or Lara Flynn Boyle?







Well I’ll tell you why I started to cry and get depressed. I was feeling light and fluffy with my new 1X shirt and shorts and asked my husband Tim to take some photos of me in the new slimmer version of my body. However, when I downloaded the pictures and looked at them—reality hit me like a ton of bricks or a ton of In-N-Out Burgers, (which I’ve probably consumed over my life time). I didn’t look like Kate Moss or Lara Flynn Boyle. No indeed. I still looked more like Kristie Alley or Momma Cass. I really took a hit to my self image.

See there is this person inside me that dictates how I view myself. You know that nagging little voice that tells you to mind your own business when you want to step in and correct your friend. Well that little girl inside my fat “suit” is still seventeen years old, weighs about 105 pounds and is the epitome of beauty and grace. It always amazed me when I passed a mirror and saw the image that was reflected back to me, I didn’t recognize that fat person. See in my mind, I wasn’t fat. I would stare in horror and disgust at the rotund woman in the mirror. Could that overly round, morbidly obese, dumpy looking person really be me? My inner slender teenager said no!

So now I’m asking myself what difference did an eighty pound weight loss make? Why do I feel like a failure even after so many people have congratulated me on my success? Why, why, why? Well because I have sooooo much more weight to lose. Probably another one hundred pounds or so before I can honestly say I’ve arrived, I actually like the person staring back at me from the mirror. The reality of those photos brought me up short and broke my (much skinner) heart.

Monika, my exercises buddy, told me to stop and think about what I’ve actually accomplished in the last year and take specific notice of the changes I’ve made. So I thought I’d make a list. Now this is not a bragging session. So I don’t want you to think I’m boosting. I just wanted to make myself feel better. So let’s see.

1. I can see my toes. This may not be a big deal for you, but for me it was monumental.
2. I had to buy smaller shoes. Who’d a thought that! I went from a man’s size nine extra wide to a women’s eight.
3. I have lost eight inches off my stomach, six inches off my bust, seven inches off my butt, similar amounts off of my arms, legs and so forth.
4. I can get on the floor at the gym and bring my leg to my chest. (No obstructions.)
5. I can bend over and touch my toes and put my hand flat on the ground, no bent knees.
6. I don’t get out of breath when I walk.
7. I can exercise for two hours and not fell overly tired.
8. I can run up stadium stairs without much effort. (I did this while on vacation at Utah State University. Never in my wildest dreams could I see me doing something like that.)
9. I went from a size 4X to a size 1X and sometimes wear an XL t-shirt.
10. My face is thinner and I’ve lost a chin.
11. I went from a size 50DD bra to a 42D.
12. I don’t get respiratory illnesses as frequently as I once did. I actually haven't had bronchitis for two years.
13. My doctor lowered my prescriptions pills from three each for diabetes, high blood pressure and high cholesterol to one pill for each.
14. I get by on about six hours of sleep.
15. I no longer watch endless hours of TV and fall asleep in the reclining chair.
Finally,
16. You’ll have to ask my husband about the best change of all. (I’m not spilling the beans on that change. Do you see my red face? No. Good!)

Well I don’t leap tall buildings with a single bound or stop bullets with my teeth, but I’m changing. Whether my photos show that in any great detail, or not, I feel a change. And that’s motivation in itself. Yes, I still have a lot of weight to lose, but then don’t we all have something we need to overcome. It’s just making the decision to eat right, exercise all over again every single day from now until eternity. I’ll always be a weight watcher, always be a food addict and always have to be careful not to lose control. But in the end it’s just like Lorel says, “I’m worth it!”

Food and diet are four letter words...!

Adding insult to injury, realizing that I had an addiction--to food that is. I struggled long and hard to find a "diet" that would work for me. As a child I was taken to fat doctors, pumped full of pills, shots and the latest crazy diet. They'd work for a while, then when I ate something off the diet, the insane cycle would start again. I'd berate myself and jump off the track all together.

As a teenager I did Weight Watchers. It was rough. The recipes were gross and the meetings sappy. I think I may have dropped ffifteen pounds after a long period of time, only to find them again when I quit. Then my doctor introduced amphetamines. Wow! Man! Heavy stuff....! This is good sh%$...! I lost tons of weight had jumbled nerves and was freaked all the time, but I got down to 112. Once they outlawed the lovely little pills, I puffed up.

College brought exercising as a college course. I actually considered being one of the little exercise bunnies with the firm abs and tight buns. I approached my exercise leader, a woman with a body like a goddess, who explained that I still needed to loss another 35 pounds to qualify to be a bunny. Curse my stupidity now, I felt it too much of a challenge and let my addiction have it's way with me. Boom! 200pounds, well maybe a little more.

After college---work. I drove up the scales topping out at 225. I received a call to serve a mission for my church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in Independence, Missouri. Walking all over Kansas and Nebraska helped me drop 80 pounds. Now I'm 145.

Now I'm home and looking to get married. Still more weight comes off. I join a program. Drop 11 pounds in a week. (The food was disgusting. Gag me with a spoon!) Got married, got pregnant, got sick, gave birth. Surprisingly I was the same weight when I delivered my son as when I got pregnant. Nice surprise!

New son, new marriage, new experience. I don't want to get pregnant again. New problem. I eat like there's no tomorrow. Gain 153 pounds. No more pregnancies!

Food was my friend, my companion, my lover, my temptor, my jailer. Harsh. No I consoled myself with food. Going out on a date, we ate. Being with family, we ate. Go to a church party, we ate. Going on vacation, we ate. I can tell you every vacation we've ever been on by the restaurants we ate at, from the Spaghetti Factory in Honolulu to the Three Crabs in Squim, Washington to Dan Mario's restaurant in Orlando, Florida, and a little closer to home, a buffet in Salt Lake City. Boy those are great memories. Mmmmm!

Twenty five years later, I believe I have started a diet on Monday mornings, done a little exercising, thought positive and starved myself about as many times as McDonald's has fries. Millions and millions served.

My husband lovingly told me I had an attitude problem. What attitude?! Who wouldn't be cheery, happy, delighted, ecstatic, tickled pink or bursting with joy with an overblown, morbidly obese body that won't walk properly, has to buy two plane tickets or has to have one of those perky female ride operators at Disneyland call loudly for the seat belt extender because "fatty" in #3 can't fasten her saftey belt. I just told him, "Hey, buddy, I'm a realist!"

So what changed? When did I make the decision I'd had enough? When did exercise become a part of me like a thirst that can't be quenched or a hunger not sated? Where was the shove that pushed me through the door of a Weight Watcher's meeting again and making that work for me. He$#... if I know. (Excuse my Mormon French, I'm from Utah!)

There was not one single defining moment that sticks out in my mind, but a series of steps along a very, very, very, very long path. Sometimes it was really hard to keep going. Like when I had lost about 50 pounds and a good friend of mine told me that she didn't notice any weight loss because I only wore moo-moo's. Ouch! Pow! Zowie! (A little Batman lingo!) Boy did that smart! And to prove to her and everyone else that I was on my way, I lost another 20 pounds. Now it shows, she says.

So to end this rambling on a good note, I am still on the journey. I'm still losing weight. I still exercise six days a week. My body aches. It's still so very hard, you have no idea how hard it is. But that's part of the journey too.

How Carol got her groove back

Motivation. Where do you find your motivation? I’ve been searching for the key to unlock the door to motivation in my own life for almost 53 years. Only 53 years because that’s how old I am. Wow! When it was ten and my mom 50 I thought she was almost dead. Now that I’m in my fifties, it doesn’t seem so old.

Anyway back to motivation. As I look back over my last year’s journey into exercise and losing weight, I can’t quite put my finger on the motivation that pushed me to walk into Contours in Camarillo and sign up. Was there a single moment that I decided in my head to add exercise back into my life. Was it the fact that I’d come home every night from work and collapse into my easy chair and watch endless hours of mindless TV? Was it the fact that I started suffering from panic attacks and let fear rule my life? Or was I over saturated with medications for diabetes, high blood pressure, cholesterol and heart problems or the fact that I was losing hair and gaining pounds from the meds? Looking back now, I’d have to say no. Those things were horrible but not enough to motivate me to take the first step towards better health.

When I first moved to Camarillo, I used to go to the water aerobics class taught at Pleasant Valley pool. I enjoyed that. Didn’t lose much weight, but I didn’t gain any either. Then I started working and the four hours it took to drive to the pool, change, exercise, drive home shower and dress for work had to be put aside. So I went to work and gained weight. I went from 278 to 308 in nothing flat. I attribute a lot of that weight gain to a medication for blood sugar I was taking. But I was not in control of the things that entered my mouth either.

I had some dear friends, Alice, Martha and Marty who were losing weight and toning by going to Contours gym, so I think that helped motivate me. They were an inspiration to me. So on February 20, 2007 I walked into the door of Contours and signed up with Judy, a tiny lady with a great capacity for caring. I trained a 6 a.m. and learned that Sonja Sharp owned the gym. She was a great teacher and motivator. I owe a great deal of thanks to Sonja.

Then I met the six to eight a.m. group. A more wonderful group of ladies could not be found anywhere. I express my deep appreciation to them for their continuing support and encouraging me in my weight loss journey. Monika, was our ring leader from six to eight. I became fast friends with Murielle, Phyllis, Ann, Donna, Claire and others like, Sue, Sara Jane, Leslie, and another Carol. I know I’m forgetting someone. I should have written names down when I was there this morning. Please forgive me for not remembering everybody who has become wonderful gym companions to me.

Even though I was highly motivated to keep going to Contours, I still didn’t lose much weight in a year’s time, mostly, because I didn’t reduce my food intake. I guess you could say I started my health journey backwards. Most people diet first and then add exercise. I did it the other way around. Early in 2008 there was a weight loss challenge in the gym. As I have mentioned before, my partner Murielle and I won with a weight loss total of 17%. I was amazed.

To make an long story much longer, my husband and I started taking a writing class in January at Moor Park College. It was simple class where we had to write essays every week. I felt an inward drive to complete a novel I had started years ago as a dream. I had already written the romantic part, so from out of the blue, (another stroke of motivation), I wanted to put the rest of the story with the best chapter. It took me about three weeks of non stop writing to finish a 108,000 word romantic novel. It may only be for my own benefit to see if I could actually do it. The work may never see the light of day. But I did it! I wrote a book. I heard a great person once say that everyone has at least one novel in them. I found mine.

I considered then that I wanted to be the heroine of my own novels. I wanted to have a hand-spanable waist, thighs that could crack walnuts, rock solid six pack abs, buns of steel and arms and shoulders like Cheryl Burke from “Dancing with the Stars”. Just before Weight Watchers annual “no fee” registration was up, I took the leap. I had attended Weight Watchers once before, (as mentioned in my previous post), but now I had a purpose. I had drive. I found my motivation. My leader Jill is a great motivational speaker. She told me I would always be a weight watcher and that my journey was just to take one step at a time. I had already made that all important first step. I will always be grateful to Jill and Weight Watchers.

My motivation didn’t come in a single moment or a flash or one single event that I could put my finger on or single out. It was more like a wave. A tremor in the ocean floor, a slight ripple along the surface of desire that started pushing me forward towards the shore of accomplishment. Then swelling up to a massive mountain of urgency and persistence until I was at the crest and plunging for the beach of success. But even as the ebb flowed back out to sea, my next wave was much bigger. Matching the force of the Bonsai pipeline along the north shore of Hawaii's Oahu. Taking a year from when I started exercising to losing 64 pounds, it built up like a tsunami, an all encomposing wave swamping out all my resistance to change. I was hooked.

I have discovered hidden treasures of strength, excitement and energy. I’m happier, healthier, and maybe a little sexier. (Just ask my husband.) I have a new zest for life. I have moved through all the clothing in my closet. I have purchased new clothes at K-Mart for goodness sake, the first time in 26 years. I can buy extra large clothes instead of 4X. I no longer want to wear moo moos. My doctor was surprised and took me off of six medications. I have now written two complete novels and will finish a third shortly. I no longer sit in front of the TV for hours or fall asleep before bedtime. I don’t suffer from panic attacks. I can walk all over Ventura Harbor and not get out of breath or have to sit down every few steps.

Do I believe in motivation? You bet I do. Do I know where it comes from? Haven’t a clue. Motivation is for everyone to discover and I can’t give you mine and I couldn’t take yours from you. What works for me will probably not work for anyone else. I had to have a hunger to replace my passion for food. I found that passion in writing and now I feel great. Prayer helped a lot too. Seeking a higher power in one’s life is often a great motivator. That not only sustains my faith, but adds a great dimension to my life.

Motivation. I consider it the greatest mystery of our time. Well at least, among one of the greatest. I know you can find your motivation. If I can help, let me know by adding your comment.

My Addiction

I have struggled my entire life to learn the secrets of self-control. I learned at the tender age of three that I would always have to fight a battle with my addiction. You might ask, “What kind of addiction would a three year old girl have to battle with?” I will answer honestly. It’s my addiction to food. Not the food itself, but the interconnected feelings and emotions that are associated with food and the pleasure derived from partaking.

My mother worked with my father in his business and often left me in the care of babysitters. These folks didn’t care what I ate. I suspect now that it was an organized scheme to keep me, as it were, doped up with food so I would be docile enough to not be a pain in the rear. Having four brothers that ate like garbage compactors didn’t help either. My mother always cooked like she was feeding the hay bailing crew. Huge amounts of beef, mashed potatoes, gravy, homemade bread, and jam and calorie laden desserts decorated our dining table like presents under our Christmas tree.

I didn’t work hard around the farm like my brothers did, so when I ate the same way they were fed, I gained weight. At age ten my mother purchased me my first bra, and it wasn’t a training bra either. At age eleven, I remember vividly going to J.C. Penny in Salt Lake City to purchase huge clothes in their “Chubby” department. Yes, the store actually had a chubby department for us girls who had no idea about watching what we put in our mouths.

There were also happy times associated with eating. My Grandmother lived on a dairy farm in a small town south of our home. Going there was a treat. It was my job to go to the milk house early in the morning to retrieve the fresh cream from the milk separator for our morning cereal. I consumed tons of Sugar Frosted Flakes with fresh, butter rich cream. Mmm, I can still taste that buttery goodness. My grandmother was a great cook. We ate well from the farm animals that were slaughtered, preserved and then prepared with love, such items as bacon, pork roasts, smoked hams, beef roasts and steaks. My grandmother’s family was large and every occasion we got together included enormous amounts of food like casseroles, homemade breads, brownies, cakes, pies, and homemade ice cream. Who wouldn’t have become a plump, round little butter ball?

I was taken to medical fat clinics and pumped full of serums and pills in the hopes that the weight would magically melt off my over inflated body. Nothing seemed to work. I remember going to Weight Watchers as a teenager and being so discouraged that pizza, double patty melts and chocolate malts were not on the menu. I lasted a couple of months. Even the happy little stars you receive as a congratulatory recognition didn’t help me stay motivated.

For a time in high school, my doctor recommended amphetamines. Those lovely little pills worked great. I felt wonderfully spirited away. I didn’t care much about losing weight, school or anything else for that matter. My hands shook all the time and I was terribly nervous, and paranoid, but the weight seemed to melt away. By the time I was a junior in high school I weighed around 115 pounds. That was the least I have ever weighed. Then I met Cathy. She was a big girl. And I do mean big. She and I became the best of “eating” buddies. Our best times were spent in trying every restaurant from Covina to San Diego. We left no burger uneaten, no pizza in the box.

Over the years, I have gained and lost weight so many times that I have lost count. When I got pregnant with my son Michael, I was so sick that I was actually the same weight when I gave birth as when I got pregnant. But after Mike was born, I completely lost control. I gained about 150 pounds. And for the last 25 years of my life have lived in sorrow and regret. I never wanted to be in pictures. I never had any confidence. I hated myself.

Finding the motivation to lose weight came in spurts. I’d join a program, lose five or ten pounds, then discouragement would set in and I would stop and balloon up again, worse than before. My doctor was worried. My parents were worried. My husband and son were worried. I contracted diabetes, high blood pressure and high cholesterol. I even thought I had a heart attack once. Still all these medical conditions did nothing to motive me.

I decided in February of 2007 that I should join a ladies’ gym in Camarillo, called Contours. It took me an entire year to lose 20 pounds. Mostly because I was only exercising not eating correctly. I loved the activity and being with women who had the same fight. This year, 2008, I took part in a weight loss challenge. My partner, Murielle O’Brien and I won. We received a t-shirt for our trouble. In January, my husband Tim and I started taking our writing class taught by Professor Clive Leeman at Moorpark College. I started to work on my novel. I had written the best chapter of the book years ago, but never put a story around it. Suddenly my entire novel was finished. It’s pretty good, I think. This singular achievement has brought me a measure of satisfaction and accomplishment I had not experienced for a long, long time. Around the same time, I decided to add Weight Watchers back into my life.

The Weight Watcher program has changed and had two options: a points system, where you can eat what you like, and a system where you eat low carb foods. I chose the points system. Within four weeks I had lost 21 pounds. It’s not a lot considering what I have ahead of me, but I take solace in the fact that I’ve started. I’m on my journey. I’m doing something I love in my writing and somehow the motivation, the power and the control that has been lacking from my life has descended upon me like a blanket of newly fallen snow. I feel invigorated and enlivened. I write at night instead of watching T.V. I’m reading more books than I have in the past 25 years and I’m at last in control. With the help of Contours and Weight Watchers, as of May 26, 2008, I’ve lost a total of 60 pounds.

I will always be a “weight watcher”. Food will always be a severe addiction for me. But I will not let it be my master and my prison any longer. As one of my son’s favorite comic heroes, He-Man stated, “I have the power!” I have the power to change my life for the better.

Well did you like it? Did you find a point at which my motivation kicked in? Please write and tell me if you did. Thanks for your consideration.

Welcome to my insanity

Here I am, it’s me, this is my blog. Welcome to my insanity. My name is Carol Anne ‘Olsen’ Malone (Olsen for those of my family that just like hearing the sound of their last name.) Married to Timothy D. Malone, mother of Michael Allen Malone, daughter of Paul and Helen Olsen, Sister of Scott, Reed, Dale and David Olsen. Boy I could go on and on and on. But this is a short blog so I’ll keep it that short.

Here’s me in a nut shell: (Crack at your own discretion.):

Well I finally gave in to the idea of becoming a blogger. It was not something I came naturally to, but when you want to write to be read, sometimes these things are necessary.

My husband is a blogger. He writes daily on one of several blogs. I was not interested in the things her writes about. He’s above me in respects to religion, technology and such. My concerns are family, relationships and love. As any good woman should be. Most women’s blogs that I’ve visiting are about family: children, marriage and relationships. Mine will probably become a vessel for much the same writing.

But then I wanted to do something more. I wanted to inspire. Well how do you inspire people unless you’ve accomplished something great. As I looked back over my life, which was a very short look, I couldn’t find something worth mentioning. An average, mundane person with an average life, doing average, mediocre things. That was me. There was nothing in my life that I could shout about. Nothing to propel me to the top of Mt. Baldy, (that is a famous mountain in the San Gabriel Mountain range), and shout at the top of my lugs, “Hey look at me, I’ve done something spectacular. I’m important, look at me!”

Nothing until I took a writing class with my darling husband, Tim at the beginning of 2008 at Moorpark College in Moorpark, where else? But I digress. In my next post you’ll find one of my last essay’s in the class. It is basically a description of my success, my triumph. Something to crow about. I hope you’ll find it entertain at least. Helpful at best and inspiration, of course. But if not. Have a nice day!

Before getting to that, I thought I might take some space here and let you see why, in general terms, I have had nothing to crow about for the last 53 years of my life. Now this is going to be a shocking photo, you may want to send the children and the small pets to another part of the house. This is going to make your head spin. Get ready, set, don’t say I didn’t warn you. Okay here I am in February of 2008.

Didn’t I warn you? No there’s no trick photography. I didn’t make the picture wider on MicroSoft Picture Manager. It’s me! Oooh! Ick! Gross! Incredible! Inconceivable! (I personally love inconceivable; it’s from my favorite movie of all time, “The Princess Bride”.) Yes, folks, that’s me. No that’s the way I looked in February of 2008 when we went on a fabulous home tour in St. George, Utah. I know, you think I’m wearing one of those fat suits that you can rent for a faux Sumo wrestling event. No, no, no. It’s all me. Diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, heart problems, back problems, knees problems, foot problems, just plain problems!

But take heart folks. Remove 60 pounds and this is what you get. Still not perfect, but an ‘extreme makeover, Carol edition'.

Well, can you tell a difference? I know it’s hard, but there is a slight difference. Come on, look closer. In the first picture I’m wearing a size 4X shirt and it barely fits. The Laker shirt I’m wearing, GO LAKERS!!! Is a 2X purchased from a regular store and a regular 2X not Lane Bryant’s or Roaman’s version. This is first time in nearly 23 years I’ve purchased a regular sized shirt that didn’t come from Ali Babba’s the Tent Makers. You laugh, but you just don’t know the embarrassment of purchasing a 6 man tent to cover up your hideousness.

Anyway, here is my journey in a capsulated form. See if you can catch the motivation that has spurred on my success to date. I can’t put my finger on the trigger of the gun that shot me in the butt to get up, get moving and then add in a sensible eating program. You decide where my motivation came from and let me know. Comment please!!! My story is in the next post.