Here’s Part I, Part II, and Part III.

After Dad died, I didn’t care about what I ate. I ate for comfort. I was buried in grief and drowning in the responsibilities of motherhood to two very young children.  And then within a couple of months of Dad’s death I was pregnant with our last child, Demolition Boy. I put on just as much weight as I did with the first two. And that took me right back to where I was when I started losing weight on Nutrisystem the second time.

I spent the next 16 months working through my grief and the challenges of motherhood here on my blog (beginning at the old Blogspot address–where the content no longer exists for that first year). Finally, in January 2006 I had had enough of being miserable. (The fog of PPD that had been at work there for a while was finally lifting and my hormones were finally leveling off–as much as its possible to and still deal with PMDD–and that helped alot in getting the grief under control.)

I started eating healthy and exercising. I found Sparkpeople.com and began logging my food and calories there. I did well. I lost around 60 lbs and gained so much confidence I decided to return to Graduate School!

When am I gonna learn? I really need to focus on and master one thing at a time. But I don’t. I gain confidence in one thing and think I can do anything!  And I can, as long as its one thing at a time.  But nooooo.  I don’t do one thing at a time.  And I don’t multi-task well either. 

When I entered school last fall the stress got to me. Bad. I stopped logging my food and gave up eating right. We ate out a lot. And we started looking for a new house. We were sick of the trouble we had in our old place–outrageous, unexplained utility bills and a nasty neighbor that forced us to keep our dogs indoors all the time because if they were outdoors and barked (even just a little bit of normal barking–during the day!) she would call the cops.

I gained it all back. It appears that stress is a major catalyst in my body’s storage of fat.  It packs on the pounds in very little time.  I’m not saying I wasn’t eating some poor choices and larger amounts, but damn, I know people that eat that much and they don’t gain that much weight! (ESPECIALLY SNORING DADDY!)

Sometimes I think about just giving up–permanently. But when I think about accepting that I am overweight, it just depresses me. I want more. I want to have fun.  I want balance and good health. I want to be a good role model. Especially for my children. My oldest is built just like me. If I don’t model good eating behaviors and exercise where does that leave him? And he’s made comments about me thinking HE is fat. What the hell?

I can’t set him up to repeat my history. I just can’t.

So. Here I go again. I should probably change the name of my blog to Yo-Yo Mommy. It would be far more fitting–and describe so much more than my struggle to lose weight, including the ups and downs that are a part of my complicated full life.

Plus, I say “yo” a lot.  Yo.

But I refuse to give up. “Fall 7 times, get up 8.” I haven’t failed until I give up, right? On November 9th, I decided to get back up and I’m doing well. Surprisingly well. I took Thanksgiving day off from tracking my food but got right back on track the next day.  I’ve had a little trouble this week because of all the deadlines bearing down on me at school.  But still, I’ve lost a significant amount of weight in those 18 days and am trying to build on that momentum.

I don’t want to fall again so I will focus on balance and this time, perhaps I will succeed.

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