Hello Size 10, it's been a while.

Okay I've never been tiny a day in my life.  Well, until about six months after I had Zoey. 

I've been a size 14, 16,and 18 at my largest.  At my smallest I have been a size 12 but that only happened twice, once my senior year and once my junior year in college and that was a very short lived experience.  I have struggled my entire life.  I would diet and exercise and force myself to only eat three meals a day, not return for seconds, or for desserts. I wouldn't eat fries and I would only eat chicken.

When I was in high school I lost all of my weight because I was sick and had to have a tumor removed. In college I my dorm was about three miles from my class and I would walk to class everyday and take the bus back. I did this everyday and ate some form of chicken everyday. I wouldn't snack and I would drink enough water to fill the schools swimming pool.  Alas, I would fall off the wagon quickly and I would eat cake and fries and well anything I could get my hands on.

I started graduate school when we moved to Oklahoma and started eating everything in sight.  I was a little depressed about being so far away from home and found comfort in cake. Lots and lots of cake. I woke up one morning and realized that I was the heaviest I had ever been and miserable. I couldn't afford to pay for a diet plan (weight watchers is 15 bucks a week) so I borrowed a points book and started buying frozen weight watchers meals. For twenty solid months this is what I ate for lunch, no snack, and a 100 calorie something for breakfast.  I would drink water and I would eat a reasonable dinner.  I stopped looking at cakes. Twenty months I out on the clothes in my closet and and I never saw a difference and then one day I was standing in the office at school, I walked over to pick up the phone and my pants hit the ground.  I was so embarrassed and excited at the same time.  Week by week I kept up with my "diet" and would exercise. I kept up with my how much I was walking and how much water I was consuming.  Then one morning the stick turned pink.

I was excited about the next stage of my life and terrified. I told the doctors about my fears about not being able to loose the baby weight. She promised that we would work on it.  For twenty-two weeks I did not gain a pound and was threatened with hospitalization if I didnt' start putting on the weight. Pregnancy ended and about the time that I was returning to school I could fit in my clothes again.  I was breastfeeding and found the best weight loss plan in the world. 

Ladies, if you are overweight, fat, obese, feeling thick in the middle what ever BREAST FEED!!!!! Breast milk is formed from STORED fat.  You have to eat five hundred calories MORE a day to keep up milk production, that would be cake for me.  With a little bit of help from nature I was back to the size I had dreamed of, and then ten more pounds fell off, ten more, fifteen, and so on.  I was so small that when I looked in the mirror I was happy, I was a size 10. I was an average American woman and I was happy.  I put on nine pounds when I stopped breastfeeding and then found out I was pregnant with Abby.  I'm back to my start weight ( the nine pounds from my smallest) and that is the smallest goal I have ever had.  I need to loose ten lbs and I will be the place I have dreamed of since I was in high school. 

My American Eagle jeans are calling my name, my size ten jeans. I haven't worn them since last April.