Well, I’m not sure if I can do better at keeping a journal online than at home, but I’m willing to give it a shot. Hey, maybe I can help some people with their progress by sharing mine.

The past: I was always a really tiny, skinny kid. After college and marching band, however, I was largely sedentary. (Can you say computer geek?) So, over the past 15 years, I gradually went from 105 to 190 pounds. Having gall bladder problems a few years ago dropped me down a bit, but that quickly came back after having my mother move in with us (at my husband’s request).

Early in 2006, hitting that 190 pound mark and feeling miserable, as well as having trouble taking care of myself, really hit home. Let’s face it, there are just some very personal things that are very hard to do once you get to a certain weight. And I was tired of people saying rude things about me, not for me, but for my husband, who is rail thin and deserves someone who looks good on his arm. The doctor had to put me on supplements to get my cholesterol down. In addition, my mother, who was also gaining weight, started having more problems with her blood pressure and cholesterol, and had to add thyroid medication after suffering Alzheimer’s-type symptoms. I was well on my way to a fistful of medications myself. Scary! Time for action!

We started with food allergy tests. Turns out we both have an hereditary soy allergy, and a few other odd things tossed into the mix, which makes it really hard to eat ANY packaged foods, let alone at restaurants. That’s fine, I love to cook anyway, and have been wanting to put a cookbook together. (Food allergies can cause various health issues as well as weight gain.) To give you an idea of what we can eat, let me just challenge you to go to your pantry right now. I guarantee that 90 percent of your foodstuffs have soy in it – your soup, your cake mix, your peanut butter, your bread, your chocolate, even your gum! Throw in other allergies between the three family members (peanut, sunflower, almond, pork, turkey, eggs) – at least we can all eat carrots, right? lol! (I have to admit though, that I REALLY miss fresh edamame. At least I never got into soy milk or tofu.)

So now we have to cook, from scratch, nearly everything we eat. It doesn’t make losing weight convenient. But it makes food choices – and trying new things – much easier. I did a lot of research on nutrition and which foods did the best stuff, and made a list of foods that we should have in our food plan every week. Then I created recipes and menus around it.

Six months later (around Christmastime 2006): Just fiddling with the types of food helped – after only a few months my mother was able to cut her arthritis medication IN HALF (joint pain is typical with soy allergies). Our weight wasn’t down a lot yet, but we were feeling much better, and our cholesterol had come down significantly! But our weight was still a major issue, with both of our BMIs in the morbidly obese range. Every time one of us would grumble about not being able to have something, I’d tell her that we would manage, because I wanted her to live forever. But more steps were needed.

January 3, 2007: My mother decided to join Weight Watchers, being a former Lifetime member. I agreed to do the program with her, and help develop menus that we could all eat (including my stick of a husband). We decided to do the Flex plan, where we added up points for every day, because I could easily calculate what my recipes would be on the point scale. Besides, it would be a lot of fun keeping track of everything. I put everything in my Palm Treo Smartphone, which I carry with me everywhere.

I think the biggest thing I learned was portion control. When you have a limited number of points a day, you learn how to spread them out! Our very first meal (the big sendoff for the diet, I guess) was a Sonic Burger and an extra-large limeade apiece. Wowwie – a 20 point meal! That only left us about four points for the rest of the day – that taught us a few important lessons that very first day! Even cooking relatively healthy and low-fat meals at home was nearly pointless without knowing how much was a reasonable amount.

I also quit my sedentary internet life, which literally kept me on the computer all waking hours. It has been very rough, and I still miss everyone from my “internet family”. I actually met my husband online! But, real life is out there waiting for me to take! So I had better give it all I’ve got!

“Outside? OUTSIDE? I thought that was a myth! And what is this thing called ‘fresh air’ I keep hearing about?”

May, 2007, five months later. Yes, this is the same shirt I’m wearing, but it is six sizes smaller! I’m down 16 pounds and my mother, 36. We’re nearly the same weight at this point. I know I need to kick it up a notch, because I’m hovering for the last few weeks. I started drinking my water…. water water water water water. It certainly helped start me up again, but not quite enough. During this year, both of us had started using an old treadmill. I walked half an hour every day, and alternated some weight training with Kung Fu and Tai Chi (I was actually getting quite good once upon a time, before the weight gain). It helped a little, but I found my weight training to be a bit boring, although very important to my overall fitness goals. Hey, the more muscle I have, the more calories my body burns just hanging out, and the more I can eat! All this is starting to be a good influence on my husband, as well – he’s working out a bit, and we spend some quality time together taking walks.

June, 2007 – I’ve lost 20 pounds and my mother over 40. Gotta love that old treadmill that my in-laws passed down to us at Christmas – and we managed to finally burn the poor thing out! With a modest inheritance coming, I thought the best investment I could make would be for our health. Who cares about money if we’re not going to live to enjoy it. So I invested in a good quality treadmill. Creating custom programs set to my own music was a lot of fun, but I found myself stagnating on the “other half” of my program – the weight training.

Then I saw Yourself! Fitness advertised on one of the Technology TV programs, and thought, THAT is EXACTLY what I’ve been looking for. I was surprised that it had been released so long ago and I had never heard of it, I thought it was a new Wii thing, not an old PS2 game! When GameStop informed me of this, part of me was glad I didn’t have to replace my trusty PS2 with a Wii, but disappointed that they didn’t have any in stock. So I went looking on the web. Eureka, an official web site! And I can get it for my PC?!?!? With a wireless-enabled laptop and a house not quite completely remodeled, it was a match made in heaven. I could take my trainer wherever the current space was in the house!

The present: So, I’ve known Maya for about a week now. This truly is the best thing to happen to my fitness plan. I’m having a blast! I pretend that I’m at a “Spa Camp” and do an hour of treadmill and an hour of Maya every day, with Sunday off to recover.

The future: My goal is to get to 120 pounds, then reassess from there. I have a really tiny frame, and am only 5′2″ besides, so I would be healthy at 110 pounds, but I will have a lot more muscle than I did when I was at that weight last. I think I could easily be at an ideal weight anywhere between 120 and 130 with a good BMI. So we shall see. Hopefully I will look pretty good by September, when I’m going on a Caribbean Cruise! I’m also looking forward to fitting into my Gi again, and going to real Kung Fu classes for the first time in years. Even my husband wants to learn, now!

And now that I’m caught up, I will save my further experiences for future posts.