my journey part I {weight loss}

Sorry guys, no cute pictures in this post. I've decided that it's time to share with you my weight loss story. I've even decided to be brave and post one of the few pictures I allowed to be taken of myself pre weight-loss. I have not decided to be brave enough to post actual numbers for anybody to see. Baby steps. I guess I'll start at the beginning. I've always been a pretty average weight. Not overweight, but not super-model thin either. It wasn't something I ever had to work at, it was just the way my body worked. Even after giving birth to the girls (10 and 8), I bounced right back with a diet of Cheez-it's and Cherry Coke. I guess I lost some of my bounce after Ethan (7). With him I was still hanging onto an extra 20 lbs even three years later. It didn't really bother me too much though. I still had plenty of energy and didn't feel "fat". Then I got pregnant with Elliot (almost 4). During that pregnancy, a routine blood test showed that I had developed hypothyroidism (for those who are interested, my TSH was at a 9, normal is 0.3-5). My doctor put me on some meds to control it and I went along on my merry way. After Elliot was born, I went in to have my TSH levels tested again and received a call stating that I could stop taking my meds and to come back in a month to be tested again. Being a mother to 4 kids and with the new baby having nursing issues, I didn't go back in. 4 months later I had put on 20 lbs, was feeling increasingly more tired, was having a hard time thinking clearly, and my voice was changing (getting more raspy if you must know). I decided that perhaps I should go get my TSH tested again. I scheduled an appointment with my endocrinologist for a couple weeks out, but asked if I could go in sooner to get my labs done so that the results would be in by the time I met with the doctor. A couple of days after the test I got a call from my doctor's office saying that they wanted to see me the next day. My TSH levels had jumped up to 212. While not thrilled about that, I was happy to at least have an answer to why I had been feeling like crap. I also foolishly thought that taking this magic pill was going to help me to lose the 20 lbs I had put on and then some. Yeah, nope. Not so much. At this point I weighed 60 pounds more than I had before becoming pregnant with Ethan. Around Elliot's first birthday, I decided to start working on losing weight. Because, you know, I was done having kids and all so I was going to focus on me for a bit. And I did lose weight! I lost 15 lbs in about 2 months. However, one side-effect of weight loss can be a delayed cycle. Which makes natural family planning pretty ineffective. In March, I learned that we were going to be expanding our family again. With Wyatt (almost 2. When did that happen?), I was much more on top of my thyroid condition. I had done extensive research and made sure to push for testing even when the doctors didn't think I needed it (I did...my dosage changed every time...sometimes doctors aren't as smart as they think they are...if you're a doctor I'm not talking about you of course). While this was all well and good and I initially lost weight after his birth, my diet and exercise were not conducive to keeping the weight off. It gradually crept back up until I weighed what I had at the END of my pregnancy. 72 pounds over what I weighed before Ethan. That's a lot of excess weight to carry around people. I decided that when the kids started school in September I was going to start working towards losing that weight. So without further ado, here is me before losing weight. Actually, I think I had gained a few more pounds before I started losing, but as previously stated, I didn't exactly like getting my picture taken.

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Okay, here it goes...

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no really, I promise...

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gulp...

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Don't be distracted my the pretty girl in the dress. That's my dearly beloved sister-in-law. That's not me. Nope, I'm the one holding the cute baby. In part II of my story, I will post a current picture of myself (still not quite to my goal, but much closer) along with the gory details of how I got there.