Title : TRANSFORMATION TUESDAY: Karen
link : TRANSFORMATION TUESDAY: Karen
TRANSFORMATION TUESDAY: Karen
Cake? Yes, please! This simply amazing woman has been through so much in her life, and has still been able to lose 245 pounds! Her story is nothing short of incredible, and I urge all of you to read it and visit her page! You are such a strong person Karen, and I am so proud of your success! You are such an inspiration!!!
Karen's Bio:
My story is a long one, but the Reader's Digest version is, I've been overweight my entire life. When I hit 29 years old, I was laid off, unable to relocate, took the severance package and I decided if I was going to be unemployed in a recession looking for work, I might as well do something about my weight.
My son was 5 at the time and in school. One afternoon I decided to get on my scale. I figured I had hit the 250's and was ready for change. The scale was broke (or so I thought). I was on fire by this point and ran out to Target for a new scale. Only about a mile away, I was back home and stripped down to my undies in the kitchen ready to weigh myself in under 20 minutes.
It was January and my only choice was an expensive thing that told me more numbers than I cared to know, and then there was a Biggest Loser $40 scale that went up to 400 lbs. I bought the latter.
I stepped on the scale and waited for it to register. I knew it was brand new and could take a minute to go down from the number that stared at me. When it didn't budge, I got off and carefully stepped on again. It said the same thing.
Over 25 times I got on and off the scale, but the number never changed from 387.3. I wanted to die. I thought about dying and giving my son to someone else. I got back in my car to go back to Target for sleeping pills. As I sat at the stop light, I could turn right and pull into the Target parking lot. I could go straight through the light and drive the extra mile to my cities rec center. I went straight.
For the next year, I changed everything about my life. My food, my friends, exercise. My habits, my patterns. Everything had to change. I couldn't be one of those people who went on a diet, or deprived myself of anything. I knew that if I could all of a sudden, just wake up one day and deprive myself of everything so well, I would have never gotten fat. I finally realized I didn't have a food problem, I had a me problem and I had to learn life. I've had some stuff. 3 years with an abusive man addicted to crack. Homeless. Single mom. Adopted. Brother killed. All kinds of reasons to be a victim. But I wanted something different and I was finally willing to do whatever it took. Not quitting when I wanted too.
I remember nights where I would stand in my kitchen at 11:30pm, after a great food choice day, after an intense workout, and I would break down in tears because I'd want to just quit and binge. But I had to keep going. It's been a 5 year long journey. I gained over 100 lbs back twice and had to relose them. For the last 2 years I've taught myself everything I can find about food, my body, how it reacts and responds to food. I research and I don't eat like a fat kid anymore. As of August 4, I've lost a total of 245 lbs. From 387.3 to 142. I wish there was a magic answer I used that you could share with people. But the truth was, I finally quit. I could only truly quit one time. People say they quit something for a period of time and then go back (smoking, for example). You don't really quit though. You just take a break. Sometimes a long break, but it's really just a break. I was done for the last time. So I decided it was time to quit. So I quit being unhealthy and fat. I couldn't just stop drinking soda or asking for half my meal to be brought out in a doggy bag. Everything changed. Food did a 180.
I had to take the entertainment out of food. If that means some nights I stood eating grilled chicken and raw green peppers wrapped in lettuce while standing at the kitchen counter...then that's what I did. Even to this day, I would rather be bored with my food than disgusted with myself. The funny thing is, I still eat pizza and ice cream. It wasn't about taking everything away, it was about eating food when it made sense. Eating pizza and ice cream everyday didn't make sense. So it went from telling myself, "it's not no pizza ever again", to, "it's just not the best idea for me today".
At the request of a few friends, I started a facebook page that motivates chunky folks. Because although food addiction is an addiction, I have very strong opinions on the statement that "food addiction is like any other addiction", umm, no it's not. You don't need sex, heroin, gambling, alcohol to live. You have to have food. Obesity is one of the largest epidemics we face, yet is so humiliating to talk about. That's what the page is about....just telling chunky people the truth.
https://www.facebook.com/
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