Wednesday, April 11, 2007

Hello Old Blog!

I can't believe it's been almost 2 years since I started this blog. So much has changed and so much has not. My last post was almost 9 months ago. I believe I was about to rejoin WW after some time away because I had been off the program and gained some weight and was sad to find that it was summer again and I was still fat. I'm not sure if I ever followed through with that but I haven't been on WW since at least last fall, and yes, I've gained back a lot of the weight I lost in '05-'06. I'm planning to start back on the program (once again) because summer is approaching, and I'm still fat. This will now be my 3rd last fat summer! To make things even more dramatic, I turn 40 this summer (July 12 to be exact), so I feel a renewed sense of urgency to get back on the stick.

Although the story you are hearing sounds familiar, sort of the story of my life, a lot really has changed since my last post. I met a great guy at an online dating site toward the end of August '06. His name is Rich. We got to know each other online for a few months and finally met in person in November '06. The bad news about this budding relationship is that he lives in Oklahoma City, halfway across the country from me. The good news is that I started travel nursing again and took an assignment in OKC starting December '06. I've been here ever since. The job is still temporary, with my contract ending June 9. I'm not sure if I will try to stay here for another 13 weeks or if I will go back home or what. We are sort of negotiating our options at this point, with him not really wanting to commit to anything and me ready to settle down and move in together. We are working hard at finding a happy medium that we can both live with, for now at least. He's the first guy I've ever been with who loves me in spite of my weight issues and who isn't asking me to change something about myself. Hard to let that go. I realize that I'm incredibly blessed to have him in my life, although I'm sure I don't tell him that enough lately, and during a recent spat when it seemed like the relationship was ending, I realized that I'm happier in this imperfect relationship that without it. I guess there's not really such thing as a perfect relationship anyway.

So here I am, ready to do the WW again. It's sort of funny because I think it was about the same time last year that I was recommitting to WW and dealing with a back injury, which I am again as I write this. The back problems seem to be an annual event as much as my pronouncements about how I'm getting on track with the weight loss thing. But even though I have struggled for years and years with my weight, I'm sort of proud of myself. I went back and read this blog since the beginning. I lost 40 pounds on WW. That's pretty kick-ass! Yes, I've gained most of it back, but I'm still proud that even with all the turmoil my life always seems to be in, I still managed to do that for myself. I know I can't rest on past laurels but it gives me a little motivation to do it once again.

I'm going to the noon WW meeting today, so I'll be posting with all my starting stats (I'm sure it won't be pretty). Looking forward to making a new start all over again!

Jen
(5:27 am CST)