In the beginning...

When I was a child my family called me little chubby bum bum. I wasn't a heavy kid, just had a little baby fat on me. As I grew up, I remember watching what I ate and how I looked. I always thought I was fat, but looking back I wasn't. In high school there was one time that I thought I needed to take diet pills. While shopping by myself I went into the section of the store where you purchased diet pills and picked up a little red box of Dexatrim. I hid that box in my bedroom hoping my parents or sisters wouldn’t find it. I walked for at least an hour every night while the weather was nice. I was determined to not have fat on me. At the time I didn't think anything of what I was doing. I never neglected eating and I never threw up my food. I remember looking in the mirror and thinking "I've got to get rid of this tummy!" Did I have some kind of a problem? I don’t know.


Lately I've been looking at photos of myself from high school and wondering "What was I thinking?" I wasn't fat! I wish I had embraced myself back then and not worried so much about how I looked because now I'm fat and I hate how I look. 

So how did I get to this point? It's called college. I think my first year away from home instead of putting on the freshmen 15, I put on the freshman 25! It had to be all that ice cream that was served in our cafeteria. Or maybe the fact that instead of drinking white milk with my meal I had the opportunity to chose between seven different kinds of soda pop or juice for breakfast, lunch and dinner! Add to that the underage drinking of beer and wine coolers on Thursday, Friday and Saturday night. 

Then in September 1997 life really changed. I was suddenly losing weight. Good right? Not in this case. I became very lethargic. Couldn't get up to go to class. Slept all the time and I didn’t want to go to work. For months I had been passing blood with my stoles which isn't a good sign. When I went to the campus health center, the doctor just kept saying it was nothing to worry about. However, that visit in September I finally asked to see a different doctor and I'm glad I did. I was sent off to the emergency room because I was so anemic that I shouldn't have been conscious. This is when I found out I had Crohn's disease.

Over the years I've been on and off all kinds of medications. The one I've been on the longest has been Prednisone. It is a wonderful steroid for my illness, but has horrible side effects that I hate. I put on weight and developed osteoporosis in my lower back. If I forget to take my medication, my body begins to get very sore, I have a hard time moving around and I feel sick, shake and feel completely out of it. I'm always hungry and feel like I need to have food in me all the time. It's not fun. Not one bit. The worst part is that I've put on about 100 lbs and I feel miserable.


Ten weeks ago my husband Rob did something that has completely amazed me. He joined the Farrell's Extreme Bodyshaping program also known as FXB. I'm so proud of Rob and his accomplishment in those 10 weeks! He looks great and is continuing in the FIT program to keep improving his health. 

I was so inspired by Rob that this past Friday, May 28^th, I signed up for the next 10 week session! I'm a little scared, yet very excited! I want to not only look better, but most of all feel better. I want to be healthy. I know it's going to be very hard and I'm going to be wondering why I said I wanted to do this. The one thing that I'm going to keep in my mind is what Rob said to me after I signed up, "I'm so proud of you for taking the steps to do this!" That means the world to me right now. I don't want to let him down, but most of all I don't want to let myself down.


Over the next few weeks my plan is to keep all of my friends and family up to date on my progress. I'll probably say some things that I never thought I'd say, so I'm warning you now. Be ready to see my b*tchy side cause it’s not going to be pretty!