My journey to wellness started approximately one year ago, in early July 2007. My son had joined the Navy in May, and after a few years of slacking off on his own health, he started making healthier choices for his life, giving up useless calories and working on his physical fitness, preparing for boot camp. I saw a change in him that I knew I could do for myself also.

The last straw 

Then I underwent major surgery, a total abdominal hysterectomy. During the recovery phase of this, I had to constantly deal with my obesity up close and personal when I had to care for my surgical wound. I was literally physically moving the disgusting fat out of the way to make sure there were no signs of infection.

This was the final straw for me. This is when my awakening turn-around in thinking happened. I vowed to myself I would work as hard as it took to get a healthy body for myself and after achieving this, I would never be obese again.

I've been through this so many times before, on the losing/gaining roller coaster all my life. Something happened this time though. I just knew it was different. I don't know what it was, maybe after a couple years of hearing the preventive medicine dictations go in and out of my brain, the information finally started to register.

Maybe it was watching my grandson grow and realize that I needed to have a healthy body in order to enjoy my time with him. It could have been because I have a guy in my life (eight years younger than me) now that truly enjoys spending his leisure days being active, and I wanted to be able to keep up with him and his boy. I know for a fact that watching my mother die from obesity-related liver failure had a huge impact on my decision. It's probably a combination of all this, but I am so grateful that I finally realized that I would never “go on a diet” ever again. No more yo-yos, no more ups and downs.

I have been emotionally attached to food as long as I can remember. Food has been my best friend my whole life. I spent my childhood and adolescent years being ridiculed and teased, giving me a general foundation for the depression I have had to deal with as an adult. My two brothers were star athletes in school, and then I came along, the fat little sister who excelled in academics and music, but it just wasn't the same. I always felt inferior because of my weight.

Jan's childhood

I was raised by parents who grew up in the Great Depression era and married shortly after WWII. To them, prosperity meant lots of food on the table, in the pantry, on the countertops, and in the freezer. Eating every last crumb on your plate and usually 2nd and 3rd helpings until the food on the table was gone was the lifestyle that formed my foundational thoughts about food.

I grew up on a farm with a fairly long driveway. When I would get off the school bus in the afternoon, I could literally smell the baked goods my mother had just taken out of the oven about half way up the lane, so that before dinner, I would have already downed a “row” of cake or at least a dozen cookies. Then the obesity seemed to have been constantly thrown in my face, it bothered me every single day of my life since childhood.

I had a dear aunt who was a registered dietician, a professor at Iowa State University. She had never married and had no children. She meant well, but had a harsh way of trying to help me. No niece of hers was going to be obese. Back in those days, she would bribe me with a Kennedy half dollar for every pound I lost (this was when I was 10 to 12 years old).

I also have a distinct memory of Easter egg hunts, and after they were over, I was the only cousin that had to trade in my candy for other toys. My mother loved to sew. And instead of clothes shopping at the stores, our shopping trips were to the fabric shops to pick out material for her to sew all my clothes for school because I was so obese and hard to shop for. I so wanted to shop for “store-bought” clothes like the rest of my friends. So, needless to say, all this culminated into a complicated mess in my mind regarding my relationship with food and physical activity. By Jr. High I had exceeded 230 pounds.

Coming next month: Hear about Jan's next goals in life. Hear how she plans to accomplish them. Also, hear about what she's done so far.