Day 2: I Stopped Lying to Myself

Lie #1: "I don't care that I'm fat, I'm happy and it isn't affecting my health." This is the mantra I told myself from the time I was a junior in high school.  Then it did- affect my health that is.  It took 3 years for us to get pregnant with James.  My doctor told me in passing, "you could lose 20 pounds. But that will take a while."  He put me on fertility drugs and eventually I became a 254 pound pregnant woman.  5 months later I was diagnosed with gestational diabetes.

Lie #2: "I don't eat that many calories."  I had to meet with a nutritionist as part of my GD diagnosis.  She had me fill in a meal plan, which I complete lied on.  I remember writing that I had a turkey sandwich, grapes and baby carrots for lunch.  Um, not true-AT ALL.  She took my fabricated meal plan and left the room.  Coming back she said, "Julie you are consuming 2400 calories a day."  Uh- if my made up plan was too many calories, what was the real one?  I remember her saying a serving size of grapes should be about 10. 10?  Seriously?  Who eats 10 grapes?

So, I took baby steps.  I switched to eating off a salad plate for my meals to keep portion size under control and I stopped having seconds.  The next week I stopped drinking soda and carried around a refillable water container.  Sure at first I added Crystal Light Packets for sweetness and then cut back on those, too.  The next week I started eating 3 smaller meals and 2 snacks. Week 4 I sat down and stopped lying to myself.  I logged on to SparkPeople created an account, Put in my weight and logged my calories for 1 day.  It was just for me- no nutritionist, no doctor, just me.  I made a pledge not to lie to myself about what I ate anymore.  I went back and really checked to see the nutritional content of what I was eating- It was 3500 calories a day!

SparkPeople is a fabulous free weight loss tool.  There are exercise trackers, meal trackers, online communities and so much more.  I found it very motivating, because I didn't want to go into a gym or sign up for another program, I was a little embarrassed of my weight- that and most people couldn't tell I was pregnant. There are also apps like Lose it or DigiFit for your iPhone.  I've used several.

 I ended my pregnancy at 244 pounds by the way- 10 pounds less than where I was when I started.