There are a couple of blogs online that I read regularly, mostly friends' postings. But one that I've been reading since it's inception is Carnival's Senior Cruise Director John Heald's Blog . I found John's Blog through the CruiseCritic website, a site I frequent when planning a cruise and, well frankly, most other times as well.
Anyway... The blog started when John was bringing out Carnival's newest ship, the Freedom, last March. It was originally conceived as a way to give readers a "peek behind the curtain" at the challenges and daily operations of cruise ship life. John's frank and funny style and his willingness to talk about the bad as well as the good caught my attention and hooked me. Since its start a whole little community has sprung up around this blog, culminating in a John Heald hosted Bloggers Cruise last January on the Freedom. Yes, I was there and finally met face to face so many of the characters that I had met through the blog and they became an online family to me.
It's an incredibly supportive group, always encouraging or comforting or making you laugh, whatever is needed at the moment. So it was no surprise that there was an outpouring of supportive posts when John announced on his blog his intention to lose 60 pounds by January 1, 2009. Many of the folks on the blog pledged to lose weight with him. It's always easier when you know others are suffering with you!
I realized that John and are sort of in the same boat. I also need to lose about 60 pounds and am living with Type II diabetes. So I decided to be one of those that joins John in his quest. I'm going to try very hard to lose 60 pounds by January 1, 2009.
My weight has been an issue for pretty much all my life. There was that one summer between 6th and 7th grade where I hit a growth spurt and stretched out. I was all legs at that point. And it's probably been the thinnest I've ever been. Those were the days... that probably lasted all of about three months.
I've never been a small person. When I graduated from college and got a job as a software programmer, I started packing on the pounds even more. I would draw lines in the sand that I swore I would never cross (I won't let myself get over 200) then I promptly moved the line again when I crossed it (as long as my boobs stick out farther than my stomach). I topped out at around 250 around 8 years ago, so I made some changes in what I ate for a while and dropped a little over 30 pounds. I was less rigid and I wasn't exercising, so I bounced up and down between 210 and 225 for a while.
About 4 years ago, by accident, I found out I had developed Type II Diabetes. I was really good about my eating for a while and took off some more weight, never getting below 205. Then I started exercising and when I started exercising I just got hungrier so I started eating more again and rationalizing that I was exercising so I could eat all the crap. Needless to say that didn't work. So I started slipping into old patterns, including not exercising and once again I was bouncing between 210 and 225.
I've changed my eating habits significantly since that high of 250, but the lapses are frequent and discouraging. I don't think I eat poorly most of the time, but my downfalls are portion size and eating late at night. Plus, I'm an emotional eater and a boredom eater and a chocoholic, I've got a sweet tooth that won't quit. I've got a million excuses.
So, here I am, making this latest attempt at weight loss fairly public, because the possibility of a public failure is a strong motivator! LOL!
I hope the journey turns out to be interesting!
