This has been "weighing" heavily on my mind for some time now...

Ha ha! Genius, isn't it? How I just used "weighing" like that when I am going to write a post about weight? I am so good at this writing and punning thing. So, in keeping with the new more open, more out there blog o' mine, I'm letting you in on a usually very private element of my thoughts and life: my weight.

I'm really private about this and frankly that is totally annoying to me. Why do I get so weirded out about it? The short answer is I don't really know why. The long answer is that I believe it stems from a lifetime of hearing thin people talk about how much they weigh and how "fat" they are. When you really are overweight, it's hard to hear thin people talk about it, especially when you'd do anything to be their size. I was in a dressing room once and I heard the girl in the room next to me say to her friend with such despair, "Oh my god, I'm getting so fat! I think I might have to go up to a size 6". At the time, I was trying everything possible to squeeze myself into a pair of size 18 jeans- the largest size they had on the rack. I was so filled with envy and anger, I actually contemplated crawling under the stall, pants barely zipped, button not even close to fastening, shaking the girl and her giggly friend and saying, "Look, you don't even KNOW fat. THIS is fat." I think it's that kind of stuff (and I could start posting examples of insensitivity and insults dating back to early childhood) that really starts to build up over the years like a bad plaque that leads to gum disease. I have weight discussion disease.

Honestly, I don't even claim to know fat that well, but , I have been 226+ pounds at my highest recorded weight (I stopped weighing myself after that painful 226 day and I KNOW I got bigger before I got smaller) and that qualifies me to wear an Invisible Scarlet "F" around for the rest of my life.

When I was 25, I lost 75+ pounds and kept it off until about 30 and then... I had a baby and I let my guard down for the first time in a long time and when I did finally start getting back on track working my way back down into a comfortable (for my body) size 12, guess what? Yup, another baby, and a "surprise" one at that. At first I was so worried, I had finally gotten back into shape and things were moving in the right direction, how would this pregnancy affect things. Well, it turned out I didn't need to worry since this pregnancy worked in my favor. This one brought about a magical little thing called gall-bladder sludge which actually helped me to only end up gaining 10 pounds the entire time (even if I did throw-up the entire pregnancy and have major stomach pain)..okay, so maybe it wasn't THAT magical. But, once Shane was two weeks old, I was down even more than when I started, and then, well then I don't know what happened.

For no clear cut reason, the wheels began coming off over the past 6 months. I didn't drastically change my habits, in fact, I started working out again (albeit 2 under 2 didn't lend itself to daily workouts) when I could. My eating habits didn't change much either, although I did reintroduce a little thing called alcohol back into my lifestyle, I wasn't pounding them back all day long, but there it was - the weight. And the weight was slowly creeping up on me and then it picked up the pace to a slow jog and before I knew it the weight finished a marathon in 1.5 hours and here I was back at almost the "2" number. I saw the Doctor who, after some blood tests, confirmed I had a "pretty sluggish" metabolism, but just not sluggish enough to benefit or qualify for any treatments, just "extra hard work" and a "good diet". I so wanted to punch the adorable 5'3" 110 lb Doc in the face, I knew it wasn't her fault, but god it would have been nice to hit something, anything right then.

In the scheme of dealing with difficult health issues, weight (and having a hard time losing it and a very EASY time gaining it) really isn't the worst thing in the world. If that is my burden, so be it, I am lucky, I get that, but it doesn't make it any less frustrating some days. So, I'm opening up this pretty private area in my life to all of you, either for support or just so you can see how freaking crazy I am in my head. Either way, I'm putting it out here as a topic I will be writing about off and on as tpd and I have been and will continue to work out intensely and try to eat more balanced as often as possible without completely sacrificing (I think that's so important - I learned that lesson losing all the weight the first time).

So, like Oprah, here I am still talking and thinking about my weight and now I'm dragging all of you down with me. Grab an Oreo and kick back, it's probably going to be a long, bumpy ride.