My name is Karen, I’m in my 40s, I am overweight,
I have Diabetes, high blood pressure, painful arthritis, and I’m Not Fluffy.
This is another chapter of my story.

By June 2010, I had finally gotten down to 222 pounds.

With my son Marc, at 222 lbs, guess I can’t blame it on baby weight anymore!

I had been hitting plateaus every couple of pounds and gotten stuck for weeks or months.

I keep going through this slow weight loss process, but I know in my heart that it is the healthiest way and is more likely to be a permanent loss.

I have gone down a size (at least) from a 24 Women’s and probably could fit in another size lower.

All of my pants are baggy on me now.  My shirts are lose fitting and it is nice not to have them be so tight around my belly.  Looking back, I was really stuffing myself into my clothes!

This is a good time to talk about setting weight loss goals.

• I believe it is a huge mistake to put a time limit on weight loss.
• Everybody’s body is different.
• We have different genetics, histories, health challenges, self-sabotaging behaviors and metabolisms.
• We are all in our own unique stages of recovery from food addictions.
• This is a Journey, not a Race!

At this point, I realized that I had lost my love affair with food.  Food had become less and less of a friend and emotional crutch, and more of a thing I need to sustain my life.

I no longer mourn the loss of being able to eat WHITE foods (sugar, rice, bread) and now prefer eating whole grains.  I never would have thought I could give up that loaf of french bread with a side of butter!

But, I have!

This has happened for me because I made it a priority to create new healthy habit goals.
I choose just one thing to work on at a time and don’t work on something else until I feel confident that I have accomplished that goal (or am nearly there) .

This takes a lot of time, but it is what works.

If you’re like me, you didn’t get as fat and unfit as you are now in 6 magic weeks.  For me it was a lifetime.  It is only reasonable that learning new Healthy Habits and not practicing a lifetime of bad habits will take time as well.

I have only at this stage set weight goals.
My next goal is 219 lbs and the goal after that is 199 lbs.

My wardrobe goal is to get out of the Womens Plus size department!
I don’t care if I wear a 16 or 18 or even a 20, as long as it doesn’t have a W next to the size, I will be happy!

Even though I suffer from severe osteoarthritis thanks to heredity, I know my extra weight makes it worse on my knees.  I have set a fitness goal to be able to walk my neighborhood until I can make it to my son’s elementary school and back home.

This will be a challenge (my left knee joint is bone on bone already) to accomplish, for sure, and I would like to make it before school is out for the summer….

Follow my story in the pages listed in the drop down menu under I’m Not Fluffy! at the top of the page.  Or go to Dangers of Dieting with Diabetes to read the next chapter.

Your Friend and Mentor,
Karen