When my husband was diagnosed with diabetes in May 2001, he embarked on a diet to lose the excess pounds that no doubt contributed to the disease. He succeeded. With diabetes prevalent on both sides of my family, I also took this as a wake-up call to drop weight. Also, I didn’t' want to be the short, fat wife of the tall, skinny man.
I promptly gained nine pounds that year.
Eventually I lost a significant amount of weight, too.
Which I promptly gained half of back when my then 16-year-old took off of for a year as a foreign exchange student in Germany.
If you 'Google' Yo Yo Dieter, I"m sure there's a picture of me right next to poor Oprah.
I can rattle off what I weighed most years of my life the way avid baseball fans can deliver rapid-fire batting averages:
Third Grade: 89 pounds (on the scale at school...I'll take a public flogging over a public weigh-in any day of the week)
Fourth Grade: 120 pounds...at the height I am now (stretching toward five foot three inches)
End of Eighth Grade: 175 pounds...at the height I am now. Throw in a unibrow...the middle school years were not what I'd call the ' Wonder Years'....
Mid-Summer 1974-155...I'd discovered there were cute older boys in high school...for gosh sakes! And my maternal grandmother had been diagnosed with diabetes so I followed her exchange diet with her that summer.
High School (The Wonder Years) 130 pounds
College (Ditto The Wonder Years) Between 130-140 pounds
August 14, 1982-My wedding Day....163 pounds (love was and is fattening!)
April 1990-First Pregnancy weigh-in: 163 pounds on my scale at home; 165 on doctor's...in layman's terms I was a chubby first-time mom according to doctor's notes, which I somehow saw at some point...
August 1995-Giving birth to second son...number worthy of George Foreman!
And so on and so forth.....
Right now I'm smack dab in the middle of high vs. adult low. Until this weekend of overindulgence, I would have said losing 12 more pounds and maintaining it would be just fine with me. Now of course...that number has 'inched' up somewhat.
In a little over two months, I enter a new decade. Am bound and determined to hit a 'happy weight' and stay there.
What's your happy weight?