35 pounds

I have lost 35 pounds. 5 pounds at time. Over the last 3 years.

Unfortunately, I have also gained 35 pounds over that same time frame.

3 years ago, when Hubby and I decided to have a second kid, I knew it would be better for my health if I lost 20-35 pounds. I also thought it would take a year to get pregnant because it did the first time around. So I began to exercise and diet. 2 months later and 5 pounds down, I was pregnant. And terrified because I had gained 45 pounds during my first pregnancy.

Then the miserable pregnancy began. Horrible morning sickness for the first trimester. I had expected some because I had it in my first pregnancy but by week 14, it had stopped. I got two blissful weeks in my second pregnancy where I could eat normally at the beginning of my second trimester. Then came feeling lightheaded after eating or abdominal pain that would prevent me from finishing meal. I rarely ate. I wasn't even hungry. At work, I would vomit in empty patient rooms' trash cans. I had to take 4-8 mg of zofran and 1000 mg of acetaminophen before each shift. I never had less than 3+ ketones in my urine. I felt miserable all the time. By week 28, I had gained zero weight, but had not lost any either, and ultrasounds proved Blur2 was growing fine. I passed out week 32 and was diagnosed with gestational diabetes (had passed my 3hr glucose test with flying colors weeks before). On the carb restricted diet, I lost 10 pounds in 9 days. Off the carb restricted diet, my sugars were never higher than 130, even after eating cinnamon rolls and drinking orange juice, and most of the time they were 100-110. Somehow, despite not eating, I gained back the 10 pounds and delivered Blur2 weighing the same as I did when I conceived him.

At my 6 week post-partum checkup, I weighed 15 pounds less. No diet. No exercise. Just baby and placenta and fluids. I was also able to eat normally. I was happy and thought it would be a great jumpstart to my original goal a year prior. Except, I was exhausted with new baby and a toddler and headed back to full-time at 12 weeks of maternity leave. Slowly, I regained the 15 pounds, but not more, as if my body wanted to be this weight.

1 year of adjusting my diet - less carbs, less fluid calories, more protein, used myfitnesspal - and my weight go down 5 pounds with each change and then creep back up.

I intermittently work out. I view exercise as a necessary form of torture. During periods of working out, my diet would get even better and 5 pounds would come off. Of course, I would stop exercising because I hate it and then the 5 pounds came back.

I got diagnosed with arthritis (subtype unknown) and worsening reactive airway disease. Stiffness all the time doesn’t help the working out motivation. Every little cold turns into weeks of inhalers. Steroids (for both), don’t help my weight.

I work evening and nights. I eat on the run or just before shift. I never liked breakfast, still don’t, and often catching up on sleep then. I am the cook for my home and I make healthy foods.

I am sick of the plateaus, the stopping-starting, this weight that my body wants to be, this relative out-of-shapeness. I am also sick of not being able to keep up with my kids and worrying about my future health.

Excuses are easier than losing weight and being healthy.

So I'll restart on Monday. Again.

Maybe this time I'll get to 35 pounds.