Half My Size..with Weight Watchers

by Melissa Jackson
(Green Bay, WI)

For years, my sister and I had an ongoing joke. “We better live our lives hard and fast because you know we will never live long enough to see our 60th birthday.” Even reading that now make me shutter that we ever thought this fact to be remotely funny. But for us, both overweight black women, with a family history of obesity related medical issues that read like a medical journal, this was indeed our reality. Neither of us grew up with a grandmother as she died before we were born. Our mother faced a similar fate, dying of a massive heart attack before her 55th birthday. We also shared some common side-effects of our obesity and sedentary lifestyle – high blood pressure, high cholesterol and diabetes. I am younger so had yet to full the full effects of these problems but after the birth of my son and even more weight gain it was just a matter of time.

But it was also the birth of my son and his quick growth info an active toddler that finally open my eyes to one simple fact. I WAS KILLING MYSELF WITH MY OWN BEHAVIOR. It was not different than putting a gun to my head although mine was to be a much slower decline - but my self-destructive behavior would eventually lead to an early death and another generation of children growing up without a grandmother (or possibly a mother). It was a much awaited trip to Disney where I could barely walk the parks all day and this fat women starring back at me from my vacation photos that lead me to make some DRASTIC AND PERMANT changes to my lifestyle with the Weight Watchers program.

I started that program over 3 years ago and today (August 4, 2008) I am not HALF MY SIZE. I started the program at 340 lbs and as of my weight in last Saturday I was 168.4 lbs. It was not an easy process and I know that I have to maintain all of my lifestyle changes to make it a permanent change but I am willing to do so to ensure I am around to see my grandchildren grow up….

I have chronicled of bit of my Weight Loss journey on my website located at http://www.freewebs.com/mommyesq/apps/photos/