On the path, views from the road to my ideal size.

I have been fat for at least 23 years. I remember being teased about my weight when I was small and looking back at the pictures, I was not fat! I was a john brown child for Pete's sake.

I am now a grown woman with 4 children and type 2 diabetes. I have been diabetic for nearly 9 years now. The diagnosis was a shock for me as it came on my birthday of all days. I ended up staying in the hospital for a couple of days and really feeling like my head was swimming from everything that was thrown at me in that time and feeling like I was just set free to figure it out all on my own. Have I? I'm still fat and diabetic, but I'm making some major headway.

Now I've always felt that you can eat your way past many physical maladies. Have a headache? Drink some water. In a bad mood, have some chocolate. Of course this theory assumes that one is capable of moderation. I lacked this very important trait for a very long time. Now? I'm getting it together.

At one time in the past 2 years, I weighed about 459. I weighed that much while pregnant with my second son, but gained that weight right back after he was born! I was so depressed and was about to just give up on myself. I didn't. I was complaining to my sister one day about how unhappy I was about my weight. She said that I know what I need to do to fix it, I just needed to do it. She was right. I do know. Doing it was the problem. I was convinced that I would have to lead a life of deprivation from tasty food and I would be hungry all the time. I was wrong.

About two months ago one of my friends came to stay with me for a little while. He'd lost about 60 lbs and I wanted to know how he did it. I asked him to tell me and he said. "Eat like you have some sense." I thought I was doing that and had lost some weight, but I wanted results like he had. When I got him to tell me specifically what he was doing, I balked. Fresh food? Nothing processed? Vegetables and fruit and fruit juice were the order of the day. NO BREAD?!? Come on! This was starting to sound like my fears realized. I was going to be fat the rest of my life!

I decided to check my attitude at the door and listen. I wanted to get my system cleaned out and my friend recommended a juice fast. As a diabetic, fasting is a bad idea. Juice was another one because of all the sugar in it. So I started thinking about other ways to clean my system out. I decided that I would look into having my colon cleansed. I found a wonderful colon hydro therapist in my city and made an appointment. I read a lot online about the pros and cons of colonics and decided that the pros would get me headed in the right direction. I will spare you the unpleasant details, but I am pleased with the results. I'd been keeping a food diary in the hopes of having someone look at it to give me some more direction about what I was doing right and what I was doing wrong. A month ago I had someone do that for me. Do you know what she told me? "You're eating too many carbohydrates. A lot of bread. It is keeping you from meeting your goals."

DAG NABBIT! (yeah, I'm from the South)

My friend was right so I had to go home with a fork in hand to eat a huge plate of crow. Bye Bye Bread. I have not looked back. Bread isn't completely gone, but three slices in a week is much less than my average four to five slices a day. I'm down to 390 now and still headed in the right direction. Fresh fruit and vegetables are on the menu now. We LOVE the farmer's market. I can get the food I like and find something new to try. Spaghetti Squash has replaced "real" spaghetti in my house. The meat sauce is creative and varied. Chunky with tomatoes, green peppers, onions, zucchini and ground meat.

I have committed myself to losing 10lbs a month. A very reasonable goal considering the actual amount of weight I have to lose overall. I have not added exercise other than walking right now. I will write once a month about my experience and hope that it helps others.

Stay tuned.....More to come!

Coley.