Becoming a Healthier Me

I'm sure some of you have noticed the category "A Healthy Me."  Today I'm going to give you a run down on the reason that I have created this category, since I am not really a "Spokesperson for healthy."  My goals in it are to help you and me become a healthier person and provide better and healthier opportunities for our families.

I have been big since I was a child.  I have been called names, bullied, told I'm ugly, and belittled because of my size my whole life.  The smallest I have ever been in my adult life is 265 pounds...and I was close to that in high school, too.  Saying that I have always battled my weight is an understatement, saying I have battled my poor attitude about it is an out and out lie.

Me at my roughly my smallest in 2003-4.

The truth is that I believed all the hurtful words.  I believed I was worthless.  I believed no one could love me until I lost weight.  Even now, despite the fact that I know these statements are untrue, despite the fact that I have a wonderful husband who loves me, believes in me, and helps me, I still have my doubts.  And unfortunately, I likely always will.

I created the "A Healthy Me" category to help encourage myself and others, but not necessarily with weight loss!  With a positive self image.  


It was when I hit my biggest in 2008, guessing close to 370 lbs, and my lover asked me to have a baby with him that I got slapped in the face.  I knew if I had a baby that big that it might kill me, not necessarily in a literal sense, but with the back aches, the gestational diabetes, the pre-eclampsia, etc.

Me at my biggest in 2008. 

I expected the weight to prevent us from getting pregnant for a few months and hit the work out videos and started on a website I found called Sparkpeople in December of that year.  I estimate that I lost about 15 lbs during that time (the scale we had was inaccurate because I was too big for it!) and we got pregnant in February.  When we went in for my first appointment I was at 358 lbs.  I was terrified.  My doctor was phenomenal in his encouragement.  He told me the biggest issue he foresaw was me telling myself I couldn't do it.

I lost 55 lbs during my pregnancy...and not because I was working hard for it, because I was morning sick.  I lost 15 lbs in two weeks alone.  When I delivered a healthy baby girl in October of 2009 (She was premature but more on that later!) I continued losing in healthier ways with the breastfeeding and working out.  But I bottomed out at 277 and couldn't get the dang thing to budge.  When I stopped breast feeding I went back up to 303... and no amount of working out could get it down.  Literally, we did 30 minutes of weight training and 45 to an hour on the treadmill three plus times a week, we swam, we played... I was frozen.  And I got discouraged and stopped.

When I went into the doctor to see if I was pregnant in February of this year (was having what I thought was morning sickness) I weighed 328.  I have lost 8 lbs since then because of the weird morning like symptoms (not pregnant though >.<).  But its helped me get encouraged again.

With the illness and figuring out why I have these strange symptoms I've had blood tests that confirm my suspicion that Diabetes 2 is just around the corner.  With the fear of my mom thinking she was having a heart attack.  With the desire to have another baby... With hundreds of reasons.

My "Before" Pictures

Of Me Now. 

 On Thursday, we invested in a gym membership for the next two months to prove to ourselves that we can do it again.  We have gone once so far and are planning on going tomorrow, and I'm already feeling better about myself.

The truth is I'm really a crumby person for helping other people become healthier.  But I am trying to become healthier myself and I wanted some place to put my efforts and my progress.  I'll continue to use Sparkpeople (and you may add me Cotsandre) and my new phone app MyFitnessPal (add me LostinMotivation).  And I'll do my best to provide you the healthy tips that have been helping me, any recipes I discover are good (and healthier!) and any tips I discover on the way, but mostly this will be for motivational purposes.  For encouragement when you feel like crumb yourself.  When you can't stand the idea of eating another low cal anything, or the idea of an apple over a chocolate wants to make you sick, come here and I'll give you a hug and we'll both cry together.