Getting to Know Me

I am just your average woman, nothing special. I am 36 years old, married with two kids. I am a stay at home mom. I am overweight, but I am working on it. I have had several health problems not unlike other overweight individuals. I have sleep apnea and diabetes. I have had high triglycerides and high blood pressure. My biggest health issue is totally unrelated to my weight though. I have a rare blood disorder called antiphospholipid antigen disorder. Basically this means I have to take coumadin, which is a blood thinner,  for the rest of my life.
I took high blood pressure meds and cholesterol meds for a while. And when I wanted to get pregnant a few years ago my doctor took me off the cholesterol meds and exchanged them for fish oil. That worked to get my triglycerides down but I never was able to get pregnant. Since then I am also off my diabetes and high blood pressure meds.
In the past six months, I have managed to lose close to 40 lbs. due to portion control and working out. So, now I weigh 301. I know that is a lot. We all have to start somewhere though. I am totally committed to losing the rest. I feel so much better than I did and I am so excited to see the end of this journey and get on to the next part of my life. It seems like this weight has been a part of me forever. I have always been a little big but never this big. My mom does have picture of me at 4 or 5 that I was normal but I had hormone issues at about age 6 and have been chubby ever since. I started dancing at the age of  6 or 7. I loved ballet and tap. I continued to take dance classes into high school and even started college as a dance major. I wanted to be a choreographer for contemporary christian music videos. I had talent. It was my passion. I got really good grades in school. When I graduated high school, I weighed 178 with 142 lbs worth of muscle. I wasn't skinny but my muscle wasn't defined as I would have like it either. I am 5'3" so I was never happy with the 178. I injured my knee senior year. It was a torn cartilage. My doctor wanted to do surgery but insurance said I had to do physical therapy. So I did and then I went to college. This was hard on my knee. I danced nearly  5 hours a day. I know I must have damaged it more. I had lost weight but I don't know how much. But I didn't have enough money to stay at that college. So, I came home to figure out what I was going to do. Very few colleges have dance as a major. Just before I was to register for classes at the community college I got in a car wreck. I injured my back and was laid up for awhile. Unfortunately, this meant I lost my insurance because it was from my mom and I had to go to school to continue to be on it. I gained weight. I did eventually go back to school but I was floundering. Not knowing what I wanted to do. I was working at Burger King which I had since I was 15. I decided to move and find "the love of my life", an old boyfriend. I was finally excited about something. But that didn't work out and I was wooed off  my feet by a good looking, smooth talking man. It was to good to be true. Should have been a big red flag. We were moving to fast. 4 months latter I found myself married. The man who treated me like a queen, never wanting to be away from me suddenly turned into a man I didn't know. He was hiding his wallet and his ID. I found things shredded in the garbage and he would come up with reasons. I bought them all. He yelled at me, he back handed me. I left for the night but I came back thinking I had made him do it. I gained weight; he encouraged me to do Jenny Craig. I lost for a while but when I hit a plateau he told me the scales where wrong there that I was gaining again. Couple months later I found out I was pregnant. We were elated. But then girls started calling the house. He would make up stories that I believed. He had just driven her home. Or she just wanted him but he didn't like her. I believed him after all he was gorgeous. I was young and stupid. There were red flags all over the place. I had the baby; things got better for awhile. I lost 40 lbs nursing. Then the verbal abuse started again. And went on for almost a year before it blew up. He beat me in April of that year for the first time. I was scared. He had hit me in the head with a phone because I tried to call the police. When people at work said something about my eye (I couldn't cover it up with make up), I said I had a fight with a phone and the phone won. He swore he would never do it again. I knew he was having an affair but what could I do? He had isolated me. My car was at some "friend's" house, whom I didn't know and supposedly didn't work. He refused to tell me where. Nothing happened physically for another 5 months but he made me quit my job and work closer to home. He wouldn't let me use his car unless he was home and didn't let me have the use of the phone. I bought my own. He was upset about that and said it was his phone line. One night in September it came to a head again and he backhanded me and held a knife to me. This time he bruised my cheek. I decided I had to leave. I was stupid again and told him I would be doing this in a few months when I had more money. That was the biggest mistake I ever made. That was Sunday by Thursday he started another fight and this time he almost killed me. He told me I better leave. I was getting my stuff together enduring his verbal abuse and I told him I was taking my daughter. He told me I wouldn't leave there alive with her. There was just something in his eyes. I knew he was telling the truth. I knew I had to get her out of there. He grabbed her by the arm and threw her in her room. He sat and watched me get my stuff. Watching her door. Knowing I would go get her eventually. I was waiting for the right time. I made my move and got body slammed to the ground and he pulled my hair, beating my head into the carpet. I remember screaming for my life. Thinking I have to stay awake. My daughter's life depends on me not being knocked out. Somehow I managed to get up and run to the door and grab my stuff. Thinking I would come back for her. He grabbed me, holding me against the door. I screamed into the crack. Hoping someone would hear me. Thinking this is it. I am going to die here. He took my glasses away and my keys off my wrist. And shoved me through the door. And just to finish off the humiliation kicked me in the butt telling me to never come back. Luckily, my downstairs neighbors heard everything. They asked me to come in, told me they had already called the cops. He was arrested. I went to a shelter that night.



Many things have happened since then. But that night, that relationship changed my life. I was depressed for many years. I battled my weight going to Weight Watchers and doing Slim-Fast. It all seemed to work for awhile but I never lost that much weight. I wasn't committed to it. I was in pain when I exercised because of the amount of weight that I was carrying. So, mainly I complained a lot and tried to eat healthy off and on.
Finally,  2010 came I had been remarried to a man now for the length of time I had been married to my first husband and I had a three year old along with my daughter. My life was getting better. I hadn't been depressed in awhile. I decided to make that change that every diet plan had talked about. I started with Jillian Micheals online program. It worked. I wasn't really good at navigating her site but I was losing weight and feeling better. I started following her on twitter and found Chalene Johnson, the creator of Turbo Jam. I started getting these inspirational twitters throughout my day. This spured me on. Then a Beachbody fitness coach started talking to me. She wanted to be my coach. I had never bought any Beachbody products but that didn't matter. I didn't have any money. She didn't care. She just wanted to support me in my weight loss journey. Through her guidance. I got stronger emotionally. Now I am a Beachbody coach and am helping others.
Today I started Turbo Jam. What a workout! I know in the next year I will lose the rest of my weight. Never again will I let it have a hold on me. Thank you Beachbody for my wonderful coach. I pray that I can pay it forward and help people the way she has helped me.