Hello world!

Well, I like the title they so conveniently gave me, so I'll just start off by telling a bit about myself.  My name is Julie, but for the good majority of my life, I've been called Jewlz.  I am a 28yr. old wife and mother who has had weight issues for the last 7yrs.  AND, since this is sorta the point of this blog, I'll go into detail on that.

When I was younger, I was always kinda 'chunkier' but never really fat.  I was active, played sports, and never dieted.  When I became a teenager, I was worried (like many teen girls) about my looks and began really paying attention to my food.  Then I started working out and got down to about 136lbs.  On my 5'4'' hourglass frame, that was REALLY small.  Now, I know in this day and age, most consider smaller to be better.  But I look at old pictures of me and think, NOPE -- WAY too thin.  After reaching that weight, I went on Depo (the birth control shot) and immediately gained about 40lbs.  I was SHOCKED and decided that I couldn't do those.  I just had to stop.  I dropped the weight (and my ex) pretty quick!  LOL

For a few years, my weight leveled off in the 150's.  I know for many that is too large, but looking back, I looked FANTASTIC!  Even in my wedding pics, I look so healthy and happy.  And I think, THAT is where I want to be again.  Now, on the the part where it gets ugly -- literally.

After being married a little over a year, I woke up one day to get dressed and realized, I couldn't get my shorts on.  I was like, what the heck?  I just wore these a few days ago!  At the time, my hubby was in the military, so I took myself to the base gym to find out what I weighed.  I had gained 8lbs. and was now in the 160's range.  I was a little annoyed, but not super upset.  I was like, "Okay, it's time to start watching my food so that 8 doesn't become 18!"  So, we started eating lower calorie meals and not eating out often.  Which, truth be told we didn't do much of because at that time, we were BROKE.  SUPER broke!  So, we started in on the sauted veggies, rice, and lean meats with the occasional baked potato.  I also started hitting the gym about 3 times a week.  Nothing crazy -- just treadmill and elliptical and target toning.  After a couple of weeks of this, I, once again, got up to get dressed and my clothes didn't fit.  At this point, I was frustrated and was wondering what I was doing wrong?  I took myself to the gym and weighed again.  Almost a 10lb. gain!  :O  And that was just over a couple weeks.  Long story short, over a period of just a few months, I gained somewhere around 30 to 40lbs.  No matter WHAT I did, those pounds wouldn't budge.  I was depressed, irritated, and down-right PISSED OFF!  I didn't know what to do!

I did the only thing I could think of.  I went to the Dr. and told them all the strange things going on with me.  The weight gain, loss of menstrual cycle, weird mood swings, and too many other things to list.  The *bleepity bleeping* Dr.'s said it was 'mental' and put me on Prozac and BC's (birth control).  I said, "NO THANKS!"  I continued to see Dr's. at military clinics to no avail.  Then, one day, my mother called and said, "I think you have PCOS!  You need to read this article!"

She mailed it to me and sure enough, I had every, single symptom of Poly Cystic Ovarian Syndrome.  TEXTBOOK.  By this point, I was a little over 200lbs. and doing all I could think of to help.  After reading that, I started scouring the internet and finally found out that hey, PCOS is basically an issue of hormones and that one of those hormones deals with SUGAR.  My blood sugar had always been strange, but in my mind, this confirmed it.  I immediately went BACK to another Dr. who FINALLY diagnosed me in 2003.  After that, I thought, this is it.  I can fight this and I've been fighting the good fight since.  In 2004, I finally got pregnant and delivered a son in 2005.  I achieved this by going on the Atkins Low Carb diet and losing weight and keeping my sugar under control.

But, alas, after having my son, I was now up to a whopping 226.5lbs.  My largest EVER.  I saw a pic of myself on my son's 3rd b-day and it was a wake up call -- I NEEDED to get back to a low carb lifestyle.  I started making those changes earlier in the year when I was at my top weight, but that pic really kicked my butt and told me I had to do better.  I was losing with just low carb and low GI eating, but it was SLOW.  So, come July 31st, I decided to start doing low carbing hard core.  I'm on my way now and have gotten to 189.5 to 190 as of my last weigh-in.  I weigh-in every Thursday.

Well, I'm going to bring this very LONG blog to an end now.  I will go into more depth on my diet and progress another time -- don't wanna burn you out all at once!  ;)

~Jewlz~