showcase

I told Annie I would showcase so here goes. I dont really know where to start? I guess my weight issues have been with me since starting my menstral cyclye. I was always a skinny child, but as a preteen my weight starated creeping up. I remember as a kid my dad telling me i was going get fat like my mom and grandma (mom is 250 plus and gma is 350 plus)It was so hard to here as a teen that I was going to be that way. I dont think he knew how much I interlized his words but you know. Anyway I had my daughter at 18 and by the time I was at the end of my pregnancy I was 210 at 5'1". No one told me that the weight would not disappear with the birth! My mom never realy taught me how to eat healthy. I was able to lose a little after her birth but soon started working at a fast food resturant. As a single teenage mom that was my main means for a meal most days . At age 22 I was prego again, not super heavy maybe 160... but at 8 months pregnant I lost my baby it was devasting. I went into a deep depression. I did not know I was depressed I just had no feelings at all. Months later when i stepped on to a scale and saw I was up to 215, I knew I had to do something. That is when i discovered weight watchers. I did well got back down to about 170. my husband and I decided to have another child. Of course I was scared the entire time. When I went into labor a month early I prayed please let this child live. He did... but he was extremely disabled...he had a brain disorder that caused seizures (about a hundred a day) and by the time he was three months old he had a trach to breath and a feeding tube in his stomach. Can you say stress and weight gain. I had at least 6 appts in a week for him and still worked full time, to take care of myself was out of the question. At 5 1/2 my son Nathan passed away. I vowed to myself I would not go into a depression like I did with my daughter. That is when I found running. I had a friend who trained me for my first half marthon. I was down to 167 the smallest I have ever been in my adult life. After the marathon I found myself starting to drink alot and putting back on the weight...looking back it was probably the depression I was trying to aviod. Within two years the weight was back. Not all of it but enough. At this point in my life I was going through some major changes. My husband and I seperated and I starting dating this wonderful man. He is a great cook. Can anyone say happy weight. Well I found myself pregnant again. Because of my other two being born early and my age I was high risk, no more running. So what little control I had over my body was now gone. I was ok with it I just wanted a happy healthy baby. My water broke two months early with this child. I was able to keep him in me for two more weeks but my son was born six weeks early. He was small, I was scared and just thought please let him be ok. He is healthy now but for the first year it was very hard. He has had two surgerys and is now perfect. During this time I kept saying I need to start running again. In july of last year I did get back into running only to find that I was back up to 205 and my running time was at a 16 min mile. I tried on my own for a while to lose the weight but it was coming off very slowly. I decided to go back to weight watchers for the support. I am now down 41 pounds and it is all just working for me. I hope this time I can keep it off! thanks for reading I hope to hear about all of you soon