"In the beginning, God made food...and it was good."

I decided to start this blog to help me prepare for my second Whole30, which will officially start on Monday, July 1st. I wanted to blog during my first one, which I did during the month of April, but I never got around to it. A friend of mine blogged during hers, and I loved reading about her experience. However, unlike her, I am no great cook and, since this will be my second one, my blog will be less about what I eat, and more about how I feel.

However, there is a lot more to this story than the fact that, for 30 days I will not eat dairy, grains, legumes or sugar of any kind. You see, my love/hate relationship with food started as early as I can remember. I believe that my pediatrician put me on my first diet when I was about 5 or 6. Crazy, right? And I wonder why I can't just eat like a "normal" person! I'm not going to get into my feelings on childhood obesity, and how it's handled. Let's just say that I have very strong opinions on the topic. When I hear women at my Weight Watchers meetings pine for their teenage years when they were thin, I can't relate AT ALL. I'm thinner now than I was then. That might sound great, but I will never know what it's like to wear a mini skirt and look cute, or a bikini at the beach before gravity takes it's toll. Oh well.

The first time I joined Weight Watchers I was about 16 years old, and weighed 198 lbs. I will throw numbers around here. My weight is no longer a big secret. I guess after so many years of thinking about it, worrying about it, and stepping on and off scales, it has lost some of its power over me. But I remember that 198. I was almost 200 lbs at a time when I should've been wearing that mini skirt or bikini. Despite all the ups and downs my weight has taken, I have never gotten back up to that number. That's something, right?

There are many years and many stories in between, but for now we'll fast forward to 4 years ago. My niece and nephew had been born 7 months before, I had stopped pursuing an international adoption that was very far along, and I was feeling lost. I was finally a Godmother to my beautiful nephew, and I didn't even buy a new outfit for his baptism, because I hated the way I looked. Here were 2 new human beings whom I adored. If I could become the person I wanted to be, they would never know the way I looked "before." That became my goal. I didn't EVER want to be the "fat aunt." I walked into Weight Watchers for what felt like the one millionth time in March of 2009, but this time everything fell into place. I was doing it for those babies. I was doing it because, after 30-some years of dieting, I was done. I just didn't want it to be THE issue in my life anymore. I wanted to move on.

I found an amazing leader named Beverly, made a wonderful WW buddy named Gail, and became very open about my journey on Facebook. All the kids from high school whom I never could've dreamed of telling that I had to go to WW in high school? I was posting about my success, and they were cheering me on! People told me that I motivated them. It blew my mind, and kept me going. I couldn't let those babies down, I couldn't let myself down, and I had people who were rooting for me. In November of 2009, I hit goal for the first time ever, and a few weeks later, I was a lifetime member. Little did I know that the journey had really just begun.