Alysha23

I was born and raised in a small town and hour north of Pittsburgh, PA. From the beginning I was already stereotyped as "husky". Which was another way of saying "Fat kid" in the seventies. Then I grew up and found the love of volleyball in seventh grade. That was God sent. It gave me the movement and redirection away from food that I needed. I never thought that I had food issues during my school years after that. I graduated in 1991 at the age of 17 at 5 9", weighing 180. I went on to college and played volleyball. I was in the best shape of my life. My twenties was spent in the Maryland/DC area. Needless to say I was always moving. Working, going dancing, riding the Metro train, walking everywhere. I led a pretty active life. In my thirties I did some moving around and soul searching. I landed in Texas where, finally, at 34 I got married in July and had my son that following June. I was on complete bed rest during my whole pregnancy and in the hospital for 10 weeks. (High risk with a weak cervix) Then to top it off. I was diagnosed with rectal cancer three days before my sons first birthday. I went through aggressive chemo and radiation treatments. By the grace of God I am four years cancer free. After that I finally had to address my weight. It was easy to make excuses like "Oh, I just had a baby". My son is five and its time to stop playing games. All my life I've always had some hidden issues that I was blind too, eating! I would eat when I was bored, stressed, happy and celebrating, sad and lonely, nothing else to do, girlfriends just wanted to hang out, it was someone's birthday, free food at work, smells good, looks good, and oh taste so good. I even put the blame on my parents. I was raised old school. We had to finish all the food on our plate before we could get up from the table. If we didn't finish there were times that it would be waiting for me the next night for dinner. This pattern of clean your plate stayed with me as a adult. It has been amazing what has been brought to light during this first part of my weight loss journey. I am doing this for me and for my health. I don't want this cancer to ever come back and I didn't even mention the sleep apnea, a step away from being a diabetic, just had a knee scope, my feet are splitting like crazy, my boobs are heavy, my back hurts and my poor body is just tired of carrying all this weight around. I'm also doing this for my family. My husband is a new diabetic and has high blood pressure which both are hereditary. We want our son to grown up eating healthy. We don't want him to have to deal with any of our issues. And, no, I do not make him eat all of the food off of his plate. I try to teach him that when he is full to stop. This is me just keeping it real. I just turned 40 on October 2nd. My highest weight was 285. I am currently 270. With God's help on October 2nd 2014 my stats will read: age 41, weight 190 and Healthy! Thanks for reading and hears to a healthier you!