Well, I thought I should start this journal to not only help myself but also help others. Sometimes we feel like we are alone through a journey, plus I can be a lazy person :phanvan so if someone can assist me in directing me to the correct way to go that will be good, until I can get on the right path myself.

I have not always had a weight problem. I have not always been the “ideal” insurance idea of the perfect weight. I have always been about 20 lbs over the “insurance guide” for a perfect weight. In the past I really did not think too much about diet or exercise. I keep busy with dancing, teaching dance, riding horses, training horses, busy with children, hiking, camping and gardening. Now I can’t do any of it. It is very depressing.

I felt my best when I was 140 lbs at 5’4”, but according to the “insurance guide” I was about 20-25 lbs over weight. So in the back of my head all my life I felt “fat”. :think

I decided to have lap-band surgery after hitting the grand total of 348 lbs :help: . Man I never saw it coming to this degree.

My mother told me when I was a pre-teen that her mother told her a “fat woman is a happy woman”! This was some kind of Spanish proverb. I still do not understand. At the weight I am at I should be jumping for joy instead of wanting to hide.

My childhood was not ideal, like most of the adults in America. I am the youngest of 4 and the only girl. But here what is interesting. I do not remember a lot of my childhood or my second oldest brother when I was growing up…makes you wonder why.

I was abused by my third brother, and I still remember many of the incidents. I had not been the best to select boyfriends, some friends and I married and divorce two horrid men. One died at 33 because of substance abuse, the other went to jail for what he did to my children.

I began to put on weight fast, and did not care. My second husband moved me to the middle of the U.S. I was a native Californian until 15 years ago. And that is when I stopped doing all the things I loved.

That chapter is closed to all of those awful things that did in fact hurt me in more then one way .

I now have a wonderful husband :clap2: who does really love me for me. I have two great adult children and 5 count them 5 wonderful, fabulous, cute just like thier Mema grandsons. :cool:

I want to get healthy, I want to take the grandsons camping, teach them to ride horses, work in the garden and best of all run and play with them with out feeling I may have to be rushed to the hospital.

And not to forget my husband I want to look nice for him but more then that, I was robbed of 25 years to be with a good man, now that I have him I want to live for at least 50 more with him, healthy and fit. :clap2:

So the journey begins. Start weight is 348. Goal will be many ranges, first is to get to 248, then to 148. My first 75 lbs lost I plan on treating myself to getting my nails done, next 75 lbs get a new hair style. Then by the last goal of 50 lbs boy the credit card better be paid I going to Victoria Secrets and other stores to buy things I have not been able to fit into for a long time.

I have joined a gym to start water exercise, and then I hope to move to other things. But one step at a time.

Here we go!