Part 9.....This story is getting long!

part 1 part 5
part 2 part 6
part 3 part 7
part 4 part 8

In August 2005, I ran into a friend that had lost a serious amount of weight. I asked her what she had done and how much she lost. She said she lost 25 pounds and she went to weight watchers. I went home and wondered if I should try one last time.

By this point, I had pretty much given up hope that I would ever change. I would be shopping in a mall and see really obese people in motorized carts and know without a doubt that that would be me someday. My eating was out of control. I was throwing up around once to twice a week on average, eating WAY past full, eating in the middle of the night, eating everytime I'd pass the kitchen. My world revolved around food and eating. My thoughts were filled with the cycle of eating because I felt fat and getting fat because I ate.....

One last time, I decided to muster up my last bit of faith and hope and go to a WW meeting. Totally scared that I would fail yet another diet, I made it up in my mind that I would try my best. I went for my first weigh in.....

The scale read 191 pounds. I couldn't believe it. That's how much I weighed at 9 months pregnant with Caleb!!!! For 5 foot 3, I was pretty much 200 pounds! Knowing that I was busting out of a size 18 and going into the 20's, all of a sudden, REALITY HIT ME. I was obese. I was headed for serious health risks. I was headed to ruin my life. I realized how much denial I was in. I hadn't stepped on a scale for months maybe years. I didn't want to know how bad it was.

These facts are just that....facts. This journey for me isn't about the weight as much is as it's been about my heart, about surrender, about obedience and about trusting God. In a society that's weight obsessed, so concerned about numbers and sizes, I don't want to give the impression that this is the focus. I am ONLY sharing the details because God at that point started something in me and is continuing to teach me....HONESTY.


To see things for what they really are and stop sugar coating things. Stop making exuses, "reasons" and trying to make sin look pretty. It was at this first weigh in that He opened my eyes. I saw 2 paths. One had life and one had death. I had to make a choice...... I chose to try. To jump off a scary cliff, past my fear of failing, past the statistics of yo yo dieters gaining the weight back, and trusting that God would lead me. What a learning time this was! I had NO IDEA that you could drink all you calories in a day! I had no idea that one egg was the same points as a piece of bread was the same as half a cup of pasta.......SO MUCH TO LEARN! In my first week I lost 5.4 pounds! In 6 months, I was down 40 pounds and by summer (one year later) I was down 50 pounds and hadn't weighed that little since I was 17! That's ten years!

But there's a catch.....this all sounds wonderful.....It looked wonderful.....I was getting wonderful compliments.....I was wearing wonderful clothes......but again, at home, behind closed doors raged the monster within......bulimia......

Looking back this is what I feel was God's plan through it all. In His great mercy and love for me, he allowed me to taste being at a healthy weight. I did follow the plan mostly, it's not like I ate my face off through that year and lost all the weight, no....But once or twice a week, I would still binge and throw up my food. God wanted to show me that it was POSSIBLE. That it could be done. To not give up on myself and destine myself to be obese the rest of my life. He wanted me to know there was a way out.

Because He knew what was coming.....I didn't.....but He did......