105

Well, as June winds down (can you believe tomorrow is the last day?) I thought I'd finally get around to a post I've been meaning to write.  See, June has always been special to me, long before Stella came along and made it even more so.  June is the anniversary of my weight loss.  This year marks 10 years.  A decade.

You've probably already put 2 and 2 together to realize that the title of this post tells of the amount of weight I lost.  Yes 105 pounds.  40.3% of my entire weight.  I'm not one to toot my own horn, but (toot toot!) I'm still pretty impressed.

Flash back to June 2001.  Amy and I celebrated our 2nd anniversary of being together and I was getting ready to transfer colleges in the fall and move to Austin.  I finally tired of being fat.  Well, I guess I'd been tired of it for a while, but I finally did something about it.  So, I began Weight Watchers.  Not the meetings and all that jazz, that's not for me at all.  No, I did it at home.  Counting points, eating less, eating better.  As it turns out counting points to lose weight was right up my alley.  Pair that with my OCD tendencies and voila!  It was destiny.  By the time the end of summer rolled around I had already lost about 40ish pounds!  Ahhhh, but that's when it got harder.  Moving away to college means dorm life.  Dorm life means meal plan.  Meal plan means lack of control over every morsel of food that went into my mouth.  However, my perseverance and OCD habits won over and I continued losing weight.  By the time summer rolled around again, I was down 105 pounds!  I'd made it to my target size and weight!  It had been a long journey, but it had been more than worth it.

So, here I sit, 10 years later and so much has happened in life.  I've graduated college, gotten married, went through Hurricane Katrina, changed jobs, had 3 kids, built a house, received my Masters.  Yikes, that's a lot.  Through all of that though those 105 pounds have stayed away.  I'll be honest, it hasn't always been a piece of cake, mmmmm cake.  I love food and, as you know, have a massive sweet tooth.  The hardest part was when Amy was pregnant with Jack, I put on 20 pounds!  Apparently having a one-year old, one on the way, building a house, and moving is stressful.  I thought I would die.  But I reached deep down in and channeled everything I'd done before.  It wasn't so hard really, it's always there and probably always will be.

I still count points every day, all day.  It's just that I don't need a book, I know a lot and can guesstimate everything else.  The OCD tendencies still come in very handy when maintaining.  I have a 5-pound window that I allow myself, to maintain sanity.

I know what you're thinking, "Where's a picture of fat Dusty?", and I can't blame you.  I'd be thinking the same thing if I were you.  Honestly though I don't have one, at least not with me.  I keep a picture at school though.  Partially to remind myself and partially to show others because they find it hard to believe.  It was taken on our 1 year anniversary and was the last photo taken of me before I began losing weight.  It is always funny to see people's reactions to the picture though, even I find it shocking.  I basically look like myself, only overinflated.  Imagine me as a Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade balloon.  You'll get a good image that way.  I'll have to remember to grab the picture the next time I'm at school and post it here.  That'll keep you checking back!

I'm obviously proud of myself for having done it.  I'm glad I'm not the same size.  I'm healthier, happier, and I get to share my story with others.  Maybe inspire them?  Am I even that influential?  I'll also get to share it with my children so hopefully they will not travel down the same path I did, hopefully they will have healthier eating habits early.  Yeah, I'm proud for all of those reasons!

All is well, lighter for a decade and counting, in Drosche Land.