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I'm a 33 year old wife to a former Marine and mother to 6 great kids. Currently, we live in Iowa, after moving here from NC. I am very active in my children's schools and the local community. My boys are involved in football, wrestling, and basketball, and my youngest daughter is in dance. We are self-employed as well, so I am super-busy doing everything, but taking care of myself.

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I'm a 33 year old wife to a former Marine and mother to 6 great kids. Currently, we live in Iowa, after moving here from NC. I am very active in my children's schools and the local community. My boys are involved in football, wrestling, and basketball, and my youngest daughter is in dance. We are self-employed as well, so I am super-busy doing everything, but taking care of myself. That is stopping. Today.

Currently I am 5'5" and 220lbs. Wow! It really is embarrassing to say that out loud, much less put it into print! I have always had what I perceived to be a weight problem, however, when I look back at the pictures of me in my teens and early 20s, I realize that what I had was a self-image problem. A size 9 is not fat! A size 20... Now, that's fat.

I had my first child at 17 and gained 75lbs because I thought that eating for two meant eating for four. It took 3 1/2 years for me to get off my pregnancy weight, but I didn't do it very healthily, so while I was dating my husband, it came back slowly. I probably put on 30lbs before we got married. I'm surprised he still married me! At 22, I found myself pregnant with my 2nd child and only gained 35lbs, but after childbirth I still retained 15 lbs that I never lost. A year later, I was pregnant with my 3rd, gained 35 more lbs and retained 10 more pounds. Child number 4 followed 19 months later and AGAIN (Not learning much here was I?), I gained 35lbs and kept on 15lbs. By the time I was full term with my fifth child, I weighed 263lbs and I had only gained 9 lbs during the pregnancy. That was a wake-up call. In four months after I gave birth, I managed to lose a whopping 60 lbs. I specifically put my body into ketosis, walked and excercised regularly, and ate little. What happened when I started to eat normally? My body stored it, I plateaued, and could not get below 197. So, of course I lost heart and went back to the old way of doing things, gaining back the weight and was up to 220 in no time. In 2007, I had just started a No Carb, High Fat lifestyle change and began seeing results fairly quickly and managed to get down to 207 in about a month and half without exercise. Exercise and I were not friends at that point in my life. Then, my Dad died, I got pregnant with our 6th child (a huge whoops!, as I was 30 and so not wanting anymore children), and I struggled with depression over a year. When I finally came out on the other side of things, I was determined to lose weight. My sixth pregnancy left me with another 10lbs tacked on and I was weighing around 227. I did not want to die young like my Dad and knew I was following his footsteps. At his death, he weighed over 300 lbs. and I had watched him struggle with weight his whole life, as well as his self-image.

So, last year I joined a gym and started working out 5-7 times a week. I had a regular cardio and weights routine that I followed and over a period of 3 months, I dropped 20 lbs. More important than the weight loss was the muscle tone I developed, the energy, and that my clothes were so big that I had to go out and buy new ones. A belt just wasn't cutting it and the too big shirts looked sloppy. I was thrilled! I stuck with a Low Carb, High Protein regimen and was thrilled with what I was seeing. I was surprised to realize that I liked exercising after all, once I got past the point where the pain actually started to feel great. Plus, my husband and I were doing it together and it was great. Unfortunately, my husband, while not in his Marine Corps shape, was still pretty fit due to farming and his business. I had a lot farther to go than he did and to make things worse, his weight just fell off, while I struggled to see a 2 lb loss each week. But, just seeing the inches shrink, was enough motivation for me, even if I was disappointed in not seeing results on the scale. After the 3 months though, I was stuck. No weight was coming off. I tried to mix up my routine, but like the last time, I couldn't get below 197. Then, my husband's business got busy and he didn't want to go the gym every night, when he had to get up early in the morning. We had been going every night once the kids were in bed and after the edorphins kicked in, we'd be up until 1-2 am. I was doing fine on 4 hours of sleep, but he was not. Because his job is very physical, he couldn't stay up so late and function well the next day. Well, that was just the excuse I needed. I wasn't going to go alone and while I felt great and had a lot more energy, there was no way I was going to the gym by myself. Stupid me. Then I decided to quit smoking after 13 years, so guess what I did instead... Eat. Then, summer was over, I got busy because the kids were busy and here came the weight... again. All that hard work, down the tubes.

So, fast forward to today. None of the clothes I bought last year fit. I started smoking again. And then I saw my picture in the newspaper and I was shocked! I cannot live the rest of my life this way. My problem isn't sitting around the house eating. My problem is that I am usually too busy to eat during that day, so I eat late and I eat a lot. Then my body stores it because it doesn't get food regularly. We pretty much eat on the go, especially during wrestling and basketball season. I'm gone 4 nights a week and on weekends for tournaments.

I ordered Slim in 6 and P90X today. During this next week while I wait for them to arrive, I will mentally prepare myself for the challenge. I will follow my meal plan. I'll ease into exercising with the Slim in 6. When that is completed, I'll begin the P90X. No giving up!! This time, I will not quit. Failure is not an option. I want to live my life to the fullest and regret nothing.

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