My Weight Loss Struggle

Although I grew up as a skinny kid, I began gaining weight in college. At first I didn't mind, because at 5 ft. 10 1/2 in. tall and weighing only 125 lbs. I was teased and called "bean pole."  After college I married and my husband and I began our family immediately. I had four children in less than ten years. I gained a lot of weight with each pregnancy and didn't lose all the baby weight after the children were born. Thus began a struggle with my weight for the next 40 years.

I think I've tried every popular diet out there including Weight Watchers, Slim Fast, Medifast, Atkins, Eat to Live, The Paleo Diet and more. As I grew older, it became even more difficult to lose weight and I became obese. I developed hypothyroidism which didn't help. I also developed sleep apnea and began wearing a very uncomfortable face mask and breathing apparatus at night just to be able to get enough air. On top of that I developed osteoarthritis which my excess weight just made worse. I began using a cane to walk. I couldn't walk a half block without getting winded and having terrible foot and knee pain. I knew I had to do something or I would become an invalid. In 2012 I began the McDougall Program for Maximum Weight Loss and lost 40 lbs.  However I had to have surgery for pelvic prolapse and had a three month recovery time. During that time I returned to eating all the comfort foods that had made me fat in the first place. Over the next two years I gained back all the weight I had lost on the McDougall program. I knew that the only program that worked for me was the McDougall program, so in January of 2015 I began it again.

I have a very slow metabolism and am pretty much sedentary, at least during the winter when I go into hibernation mode. So I haven't lost as much as I would like, just 10 lbs. so far. However, now that it is Spring, I am hoping to be more active and lose more weight. So I started this blog to record my progress to share with my family and friends.

This week (the last week in March of 2015) I will be doing the Mary's Mini Diet as a "kickoff" and then do the McDougall Maximum Weight Loss Program after that until I reach my goal weight. This is a stricter version of the McDougall Program, named after Dr. McDougall's wife, Mary, and consists of eating only one type of starch during the entire week along with non-starchy vegetables and two servings of fruit each day. I tried this before and lost a pound a day. I have chosen potatoes as my starch de jour. There are so many dishes you can make out of potatoes so they lend themselves to this type of restrictive diet.

To learn more about The McDougall Program, click the link below. 

https://www.drmcdougall.com/
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My Statistics:

Date: 3/23/15

Weight: 260 lbs.

Bust: 44 in.

Waist: 45 in.

Hips: 54 in.