Meg's Story

Okay, ever since Genny made me an author I've been intending to add a post, it's just been too hard to find time. Most of the time when I'm checking out blogs I'm holding a baby (or two) which makes it very difficult to type. So, we'll see if I get very far now since I know one of the girls just woke up.

In high school I was very skinny, usually on the too-skinny side if you go by official "healthy weights" and whatnot. When I got my driver's license, for example, I weighed 105. It was very hard to give up that license when I had to ten years later because I knew I would never again have a license that said I weighed 105. Anyway, I went to college and gained, and gained, and gained. By the end of college I weighed around 150, if I recall correctly. I then moved to Alaska which was a very interesting experience weight-and-exercise-wise. During the summer my friends and I were exercising incessantly, I walked and biked everywhere. We hiked, we played soccer and frisbee. We were outside all the time enjoying the sunshine. Then winter would come and we watched movies. So my weight would go down in the summer and up over the winter. I really didn't make any gains since I was back around 150 when I moved back to UT. I did learn one thing about my diet from my time in AK: it is terribly unhealthy. My roommate was diabetic and had to eat well for her health. I learned just how bad my diet is by comparing it to hers.

The next mistake I made was buying a car. Once I had a car it was way too easy to drive instead of biking/walking. So my exercising decreased significantly. I made occasional attempts to increase it, but my willpower is extremely lacking (thus why I am excited about this blog and being shamed into better shape :-). My weight did not improve during my time in UT, I mostly floated between 150-155.

I believe when I moved to WY and met my husband I weighed around 155. (I've avoided scales for so much of my life that I only have guestimates on my weight.) I did quite a bit of walking and biking when I first got to WY, so I wasn't gaining and may have even lost a little bit, but it couldn't have been much, just guessing from the way my clothes fit at the time.

Getting married changed my lifestyle significantly. Almost all exercise stopped. (Why would I walk/bike to an event when my husband was going to drive there? That would just be silly.) I also started eating a lot more. Not intentionally, it just kind-of happened that I took on his habits of eating without letting go of any of mine. I would eat something in the morning, I would eat a bigger lunch than I was used to because I would eat with him, I would eat a meal when I got home from work, and then I would eat another meal when he normally ate dinner -- quite late. Needless to say, I started gaining weight. Less than a year later, just before I got pregnant, I weighed right around 165. I was right to the point where I either had to lose some weight or buy a whole new wardrobe because my clothes were not fitting so well anymore. I really hate that feeling. Then I got pregnant and had to buy a whole new wardrobe anyway.

Pregnancy worked a little differently for me than it does for most women: I lost weight. The first ten weeks I lost 15 lbs. At my first doctor's appointment I weighed 149. I was really, really morning sick. Not fun at all. I couldn't keep anything down. The doc assumed it was because I was having twins. After a few weeks of nausea medication I did start to gain. But judging from the results after the babies were born, I really don't think I gained anything other than baby and water weight. Two weeks after the babies came I weighed 143! The lowest I've weighed in years. It felt really good. I fit back into my pre-pregnancy clothes better than I had fit in them pre-pregnancy.

Over the past six months, however, I made the mistake of assuming that breastfeeding two babies would keep the weight off and I haven't been very good at watching what I eat. I also haven't gotten in much exercise at all. It was too cold to walk with the babies and, adding to my list of excuses, the babies take up a lot of time. So my weight has gone back up. I'm right around 155 again.

According to the BMI range for my age and height (5'6") I should weigh between 118 and 155. In other words, I'm right on the verge of overweight. I'd really like to get away from that line. My goal is to get back down to the 135-140 range. Then I could get a whole new wardrobe of smaller clothes, instead of larger ones. :-) I'm going to focus mostly on exercise. I intend to work on eating better, too, but I am nursing two babies so I do have to eat A LOT right now. If I go more than about three hours without eating I feel awful. I'm not sure if I'm up to posting everything I eat every day, but I'll work up to that. However, I love the idea of having to post how much I exercise. I think that will get me going better. Last week I did okay, but not great. I got out for one walk, thank goodness it's getting warmer now, and I spent 25 min on my exercise ball one day. I took a short walk today, too. My basic goal is to walk as often as possible, mostly because that's the easiest way to exercise with the babies, they love to get outside. On days when I can't walk my goal is to spend time on my exercise ball, 20-25 min. I will try to cut out some of the candy and sweets in my diet, also. That's far more difficult since I've been married. I never buy candy, however, my dear husband hits every after-holiday candy sale. We have Halloween candy, Christmas candy, Valentines candy, and Easter candy currently in our house. Some of it is easy for me to avoid; the chocolate, on the other hand... I guess that's my challenge. Like I said, I'll work my way up to posting what I eat. That will be especially good after I start weaning the babies and I will definitely need to cut back on the food intake.