After highschool, I went away to a small private college to study nursing. The school was very conservative and strict (my own standards and faith were much less conservative). For example, you could not date without a chaperone--crazy in today's world, huh?

During those years, I studied hard and worked to pay my way through school. Each summer I worked in a Finnish Nursing home in South Florida and spent significant time in Peru as well. One summer I spent 12 weeks on a college mission team where we worked in a camp for disabled children in a jungle town, for example. I had the time of my life. I was at my thinnest (140 pounds) and had a boyfriend with me on the trip with whom I was deeply in-love. I had a chance to visit my childhood home in the deep jungle and travelled by sea plane to get there. I saw the Indian friends I knew from childhood. All was well in the world!

It is funny how I still felt so fat and assumed I was the fattest girl on the team. It was when we all had to weigh to get on an airplane that I found that I was the 3rd thinnest in the group of 8 girls!!! What a shock that was. I wish now I embraced that weight better instead of wanting to be 127 pounds instead of 140 or 150. I was athletic and strong and fit and beautiful even though I had big hips!

The next 2 summers, I went back on medical teams to the same place, and life ahead was only good. By my junior year, I was secretly engaged (waiting till Christmas to announce and get ring) etc. I then had a snafu with my school registration and ended up staying out of school my junior year. I thought it was the end of the world, but it was a gift. I spent a wonderful year with my mom, breaking up with my boyfriend, taking a road trip to my ancestral home in Wisconsin and Minnesota with my mom, spending Christmas in Europe and working as and LPN and getting valuble RN experience.

Hindsight is 20-20. What was the most traumatic event--staying out of school a year, was a blessing. My mom ended up dying the following year and this year at home allowed me to cherish amazing times with her when she still was well. My boyfriend was not the man for me and if I had been at school, I might have missed the signs!

After graduating, I worked as an RN. My mom died 3 months after college graduation and I had a brother still in highschool to support and an older brother who still had some growing up. It was the hardest year of my life.

My weight was stable for 10 years and ranged from 140 pounds to about 155. I was either on a diet or cheating on a diet during this time. I went to diet doctors and they told me my metabolism was very low. I still never got diagnosed with hashimotos. I exercised 5 days a week.

Three years after my mom's death, I was in grad school getting my NP training. My older brother was married and my younger brother in college. For the first year of grad school, I exercised almost daily. It was a move that changed everything. I moved far from the gym and suddenly my exercise plummeted and I slowly started gaining weight. I was folk dancing a lot and in an amateur performing group, but it was not enough exercise for my body. So over the next 10 years, I gained about 10 pounds a year. I was often on a diet and had one weight loss when I was Dr. Atkin's patient in 1996.

By then, I met my husband (met tango dancing at the university) and we married in 1992. I had started gaining weight and had stopped weighing myself and was not dieting. I was enjoying life and food and slowly but surely putting on pounds. By my wedding, I had hit 200 pounds.

In 1993, we moved to New Jersey, and I was a patient of Dr. Atkins. It took me 6 months, but I lost 20 pounds and got pregnant with my son. The low carb diet probably helped the PCOS and increased my fertility. I actually weighed less the day he was born than the day I got pregnant. My 2 pregnancies were amazing in that I did not gain weight. However, I breast fed over the next 6 years and during that time, I gained 50 pounds. In about 10 percent of women, they gain weight breastfeeding because it increases insulin resistance. I was that 10%. I did not know i had PCOS yet.

Right around year 2000, I was diagnosed with hashimoto's and PCOS and was started on medicine that took off about 10 pounds. I was almost in a fog with my weight and I had stopped dieting. All those years of strict dieting really messed up my mind a bit and i just had no ability to stick with a diet. So these years were happy with family, but frustrating with dieting and weight. Being a mom with young kids has a way of putting you in a fog anyway--best times and worst times. I was also in grad school again so there was not a lot of time for me. The me time is coming though!