14 years

or 6 months? You may wonder what I mean by this, get your panties out of a wad...I'll get there. Fourteen years ago I was in the hospital scared to death of the screaming, poopy 8.75 pound red head lying next to me. Now that he's 14, he's still scaring me to death....When I was pregnant with him I gained, oh, roughly 50 pounds. The problem was, I never lost that 50 pounds. Dan was trucking over the road and gone all the time, leaving me, in essence, a single mom and I ate, and ate, and ate and didn't exercise and those 50 pounds clung to me for dear life.
I did lose a few pounds five years later before our wedding. I didn't know how much, as I didn't own a scale, nor bother to ever use one. I worked out with a personal trainer and lost many inches and my wedding dress was a size 16, I wasn't too upset about that, I was expecting a much larger number.
Seven years later when I was pregnant with Jaci I gained 8 more pounds. Yes, just 8. When you're roughly the size of a sow, you don't need to gain much more than that while pregnant! Also, I puked all day, every day during 99% of that pregnancy, so that helped with the weight gain.
After having Jaci I decided I needed to lose weight. Weight Watchers was kind of the "in thing" around here at the time, everyone was doing it, so i signed on. The first 30 pounds came off pretty easily, after that it was pay $10 a month to gain and lose the same two fucking pounds over and over until 6 months and $60 later, you say FUCK IT. Plus, while you're on WW you hoard your points eating popcorn and processed WW 1 point yogurts and cheeses and cupcakes so you can use your flex points for beer and pizza. ** Not that I want to bash WW, if it works for you, great, go with it, it just wasn't the right plan for me**
Anywho, after falling off the WW wagon completely by downing 4 grilled cheese sandwiches in one sitting, those 30 pounds plus 12 more piled right back on.
Here I am 14 years later, I am in jeans that are smaller than what I wore pre-pregnancy. Those 50 baby pounds are gone, I dare say, for good. I want to lose maybe 25 more, but if I only lose 10 or 15 more, I will be okay with that. Happy about it, no, but okay. I am semi-content with where I am at. I have lost 50 fucking pounds and that's nothing to sneeze at.
I'm wondering if it's taken me 14 years to do it, or 6 months? At the same time I wonder, does it matter? It's gone and I won't let it come back. There are too many things I have found 50 pounds lighter that I don't want to give up. I like $150 jeans, even if my budget doesn't. I like walking into pretty much any store there is an knowing I can fit something other than the jewelry. I like not having to pop Advil daily to get rid of the constant headaches. I like not waking up in the middle of the night with a horrible stomach ache. (Honestly, I used to average horrible stomach aches with "you might want to stay out of the bathroom for a while" consequences at least once a week. I truly cannot remember the last time I had one of those. Coincidence? I think not.) I like hearing compliments, even though I am not used to them. I like being able to run down the street with my daughter and not be out of breath before I hit the end of the block. I'm finally getting to the point where I like me again, and I don't care if it took me 14 years to get there.