FEBRUARY 25, 2009 - THUNDER THIGHS

I have always had large thighs. When I was a little girl, they were starting to be visible, if you knew what you were looking for. By the time I hit my teens, I was convinced that I was fat because of the way my body was shaped, even though I was a normal weight.

I now know that we are genetically predisposed to store fat in certain parts of our bodies. I store fat in my thighs, and no amount of dieting or exercise will change that. I might store less fat there as time goes on, but I will always be somewhat disproportionate in that way.

One time, after my children were born, I starved myself down to 113 pounds. And I still had thunder thighs!

Finally, at the age of 53, I have made my peace with my thighs, and I know that as I get closer to my goal weight, I’ll look better, but not perfect, and that’s okay.

FEBRUARY 25, 2009 - "YOU EAT TOO MUCH - NO WONDER YOU'RE CHUBBY!"

I clearly remember a day when I was around 12 years old, and my sister was 13. She was one of those kids that was always thin, no matter what she ate. I, on the other hand, although not fat, always tended toward being just slightly chubby, at least in my own mind. I was definitely not thin, like my sister. Looking back, I was probably normal weight. Even so, on this particular day that is burned into my memory, my father told me that I ate too much and should try to eat less and lose weight. I told him that I eat no differently than my sister, and he said I was lying. He said I was obviously sneaking food when no one was looking.

It’s an argument that we have to this day. He is now 79, and I am 53. When my weight has been out of control, he has accused me of overeating in secret. He says, “If I lock you in a room and give you only what you are supposed to eat, I guarantee that you will lose weight!”

How can I express to him the frustration of eating exactly what this diet or that diet has told me to eat, and yet losing no weight, and, in some cases, gaining weight? I have locked myself in a room, figuratively speaking, and controlled what I have eaten to the 1/100 of a calorie!

Thank goodness that there is now research out there to support what I have suspected all along – everyone’s metabolisms is different, and you can give two people the exact same thing to eat, day after day, and one will lose weight and one will maintain or gain.

FEBRUARY 25, 2009 - TWIGGY

I wasn't fat as a child or teen. But I thought I was. When I was growing up, Twiggy was a very popular model, and all the girls wanted to look just like her. What a dream, right? Just look at her... She looks like she is starving. I guess in my own way, I did become like her. Until recently, I have been starving on every diet conceived in the mind of man. I suffered through The South Beach Diet, NutriSystem, LA Weight Loss, Deal-a-Meal, The Hawaiian Diet, The Schwarzbein Principle, The Carbohydrate Addict's Diet, the GI Diet, The T-Factor, The Nautilus Diet, The Pritikin Diet, Seattle Sutton's Healthy Eating, The Zone, Weight Watchers and a diet called, if you can believe it, The Ice Cream Diet.

Don't get me wrong. There were some good ideas mixed in there in the craziness. All of these diets tried to convince me that eating junk was bad for me. All except The Carbohydrate Addict's Diet, which actually, sort of, encouraged me to eat all the junk I wanted, as long as I could do it within the space of 60 minutes. Which encouragement I took, by the way. I never did lose anything on that one. I wonder why?

Also, I can't say that I didn't ever lose weight on these diets. Sometimes I did, and sometimes I didn't, but even when I did, I could not maintain the loss because I was starving!

FEBRUARY 25, 2009 - MY BREAKING POINT

My health life is in a shambles. I am thirty pounds overweight and miserable. 158 pounds on a 5'3" body is never pretty, and it is the most I have ever weighed. I weighed less than 158 pounds when I was nine months pregnant!

I am 46% body fat, and my muscles have wasted away to practically nothing. I am getting no exercise. My hormones are totally out of whack. Everything I am eating, or try to stick to eating, is extremely low calorie and low fat. And hundreds and hundreds of carbs per day! Basically, I am eating the Standard American Diet! And the S.A.D. iss making me sad, indeed!

I'm writing this blog to try to put into words what is happening to me and where I am going from here. It will also help me keep track of all my results with my weight loss, health goals and other miscellaneous stuff as it comes up in my life. I hope that anyone reading this will either find it interesting in some way, or be helped by it. If numbers make your head hurt, you might want to stop reading now! Feel free to comment or ask questions if you like.

Just in case you don’t know me, here is a little background:

I am 53 years old and 5’3” tall. I have low thyroid, low testosterone, low progesterone and estrogen dominance, all of which make losing weight a real challenge. If you are around my age, you probably have some of these problems, too, for decreasing hormones happens as you age.

I was normal weight until I hit my thirties, although I thought I was fat as a child and teen. I weighed 118 pounds when I was 18 years old, and how I wish I could go back there!

Once, when I was in my late twenties, I starved myself down from 125 to 113 pounds. The day I realized that the thought of chewing food was making me feel grossed out, I knew I had to start eating again or I would develop an eating disorder. I did eat, and gained back the weight I had lost.

From the time I was 30 years old until just recently, I slowly but surely gained around 40 pounds, even though my eating habits had not changed. I tried every diet in the world!