There is so much to me. How can I tell my story on a web site? Do I share with you all my past hurts? Do I show you my scars? Do I share with you my triumphs and successes? Do I fill you in on my joys? There just isn't room or time. So I've boiled my person and my up-and-down weight story into a few paragraphs. Maybe you can relate.

I am a beautiful brunette with black/brown eyes and olive skin. I am a Christian and my relationship with Christ is the most precious thing in my life. God has given me many gifts that I am thankful for. I'm very creative and enjoy a lot of arts for hobbies: painting, sewing, decorating, crafts. I love to sing and have been singing in church since I was very young. I also enjoy public speaking and have the opportunity to share my teaching gift in my church with adults and children. I also enjoy helping to put our church services together. (We call it programming, but I really dislike the word.) This helps me use my creativity and I simply love doing it. I am a mother of 3 teenagers who are some of the greatest people that I know. They inspire me. I am the wife to a wonderful, hardworking man that I've been married to for 18 years. He is the only boy I've ever kissed and the only boy I'll ever love. I work full time in software development. (I won't bore you with the technical details.) I am very blessed. Oh by the way, I used to weigh 289.5 lbs.

I can barely remember a time when I was not overweight. I was 8 years old. That year I had to get my tonsils removed and ever since then I started gaining weight. Until that time my throat was always sore so I wasn't too interested in eating anything. Then, voila, with one little surgery all the pain was gone and eating was wonderful. So I ate. I ate all the time. I couldn't believe how good some things tasted, and I started to get chubby. Thankfully I was a very active as a child or else I would have been obese by the time I was 9! I was always riding my bike, climbing, running and jumping. I really miss those things.

Then my family made a move when I was 11. I still rode my bike, but I didn't have as many cousins and playmates to keep me active. The older I got the more weight I gained. I remember weighing 125 in the 7^th grade. I was 5' 2" then so I was still just chubby but not really obese.

Then my family made another move right at the time I was to start high school. I was 14 and very upset with my parents. My dad was a pastor and I knew that moving was inevitable but it was so hard this time. By the end of summer I weighed 155 and was still 5'2" and I started high school a pleasantly plump teenager. I didn't know anyone in our new town, and I had lost interest in bike riding. I played softball occasionally, but not enough to be considered active. I was too nervous about high school sports in my new town to try anything. So I kept nudging up the scale.

I was so tired of hearing, "You'd be so pretty if…" or "You have such a pretty face." (Why do people think that these are compliments?) These 'compliments' were enough to get me on my first diet. Let the yo-yoing begin.

In my freshman year of high school I went on my first diet and lost 15 pounds, this put me at 140. Then I gained it back plus 10 pounds…160. Then I lost again down to 145 and gained it back plus 5…..165. Then I lost again down to 150 and gained it back plus 10…175 and so the story goes.

During my junior year my boyfriend and I (my husband) became very serious and we made some really bad choices. I was pregnant at 16. (Now that is a whole other story!) I married at 17, baby at 17, baby at 18, baby at 20…Whew! …All the time gaining a little extra with each pregnancy. I was yo-yoing my way through life. 175…155…185…150…(baby)…200…225…200…245…217…250…225…260…225…275…225…289!!!!!

289! That's what I weighed on January 3, 2000. I never thought I would be that close to 300 lbs. When I saw those numbers on the scale I couldn't believe it. How did this happen? I was tempted to try to blame it on stress, past hurts, depression…but I faced those numbers on that scale and I faced the truth. I was killing myself slowly by eating too much of the wrong things and never exercising. I have way too much going for me to allow this to happen. I knew from my yo-yo experiences that diets do not work. If I lose weight and gained it back plus 10, I'll reach the 300 mark.

This is where you are meeting me at this point in my journey. I want my health. I want to ride my bike, run, skip, and jump and play softball. I want to go swimming without feeling so self-conscious about how I look that I don't enjoy myself. I want to ride roller coasters without worrying about whether or not the restraints will fit me. I want to live to be 100 years old. I want to hear somebody say, "You are beautiful" and leave it at that!