Starting MY Journey

As a full time working woman it can sometimes be hard to make sure that you are remembering to take care of yourself. Add "mother" to your title and it can be even easier to put yourself on the back burner. If you are an emotional eater, look out! Add in extreme O.C.D., a teenager, outstanding debt and you have a recipe for dieting disaster.

Most woman can relate to some of the quirks that I have already mentioned, and at least one person reading this can relate to them all. I have never realised how average I really was until recently. With a flaire for the dramatic I always thought "there's no way someone else out there is raising a stepdaughter only 14 years younger than them" or "I can't believe anyone else is this miserable with their body & their financial situation at the same time". That whole absolutely alone feeling.

With the birth of my youngest daughter in July 2010 I had a rude awakening. I'm not any more special than anyone else, I'm normal. Other women out there juggle full time jobs, 2+ children, the finances, a household (and all the chores involved with that), a mental illness, etc. As much as it quickly shut me up and I quit complaining about my world, it was also oddly comforting. There ARE other people out there who have been here/are here now and they understand what I am feeling. Thank goodness.

In February I was feeling that I was pulled so thin, I started wondering if it was the late onset of P.P.D (aka Baby Blues). I went to the doctor (lovely woman) to be told it wasn't P.P.D. but rather a very poor managed O.C.D and I had to basically rethink my daily routine. I went home, and with the help of my loving husband and oldest daughter we put together a list of my "ticks". It was extensive and rediculous. Honestly though, most of them were absolutely unreasonable. From the way the kids' IKEA bowls were stacked, to how the floor was swept, to the fact that if the laundry wasn't folded how I liked, I wouldn't only refold but rewash the whole batch. What a waste of energy. You would think a high strung woman with three kids and the tendancy to be crazy would be thin as a rail, but that would be wrong. At least in my case.















The heaviest I weighed in at was 265lbs, 7 years ago. Although the birth of my daughter Amelia, a bad relationship breakup and the beginning of a happy relationship lead to me dropping 35 lbs. I stuck around 230lbs for a few years, and after the birth of the youngest I managed a little more weight loss (gee thanks morning sickness and lack of appetite). I stuck at 220lbs for awhile, until 6 months ago. That's when I struck a new low, a huge funk, and without doing something extreme I knew that I was just going to keep sinking. That was a scary thought.