chefjmarie
My story begins like most... I was born into a loving and warm family. I have two great parents and a big brother. We have a huge extended family that is also very loving and supportive. We also love to eat! We gather for every known holiday to eat and eat and eat some more. Only in the last few years the trend is swinging a bit, now at summer parties the focus is swimming and in the winter it seems to be on games. I think my whole family is seeing our food patterns aren't good.
As I grew up I found that food was a friend and a topic of conversation. I was an active kid but also a chunky one. I played sports but still managed to pack on the pounds. My parents have always been heavy so it seemed so natural to me. My brother was very heavy until the summer before high school. He had chosen to go to Marine Devil Pup Camp. They train kids like they do the Marines. He came back not only healthy but excited about exercise. In high school he became a jock. He played basketball with the team and was awesome but his real aptitude and energy went into football. My brother played football in high school, junior college and at the university. He could have played pro - that's not just a saying - he really was that good. But he made other choices. Instead he married a wonderful woman and has three of the smartest, most beautiful girls in the world. Those girls are one of my motivations. I doubt they know that and I'm not sure they would even understand it but they are one of my driving forces.
While my brother was becoming "Super Jock", I was getting fatter. By my freshman year I was 250 lbs and barely keeping up on my grades so I couldn't play all the sports I wanted. I did compete in track and field, of course I was not a runner, but I did pretty good in the discus and shotput. I also was asked to be on the Volleyball team every year but managed to screw up my grades well enough not to be able to play. I was lucky enough to have a vollyball coach who would let me practice with the team. My other passion was swimming but there was NO WAY I was going to wear one of those swimsuits in public.
At my graduation I was probably close to 300lbs but at the time still not in deadly shape. I could hike a mountain, which I did often, or play a hard game of basketball. At 22 I was physically able to work a summer at a camp in the Sierra's and be able to backpack for days, canoe a lake, swim for hours and still have energy to hang out and BS with the other counselors til 2 in the morning. It hasn't always been a hard life. I have great friends, I dated often, and I was happy.
My life came crashing around my ears when I was about 26. I was going through a messy divorce from a real creep of a guy, was at my highest weight point (435lbs) and struggling to keep my head above water. I wanted to change so I started to get back in shape. I worked out, made new friends and was going out every night. It took a couple years but I got down about a hundred pounds (a lot of which I have found again). Then I got sick. They found a bulging disk and a compressed disk in my back. I was laid up for way too long. I gained weight and lost it and gained and lost (you've all been there).
2nd Chance - On one such loss I found the love of my life, Michael, a great guy who understood that I was not at my top weight and that I knew I could be there again. He helped me start again. He lived across the country but we dated for a year, traveling back and forth and talking on the phone daily. My back wasn't getting better at my job where I sat all day so I decided to pursue another passion. Wouldn't you guess that passion was food! I moved to Louisville, KY from my home in Cali to become a chef. It didn't hurt that my boyfriend lived 2 hours from the city. A few months after I moved to KY, we moved in together. Being happy in love and being happy around food was not a good combination. I started gaining rather quickly. When I finished school and we moved back to my home in CA I was 350lbs again. On my return to CA I was diagnosed with diabetes and high blood pressure. I don't know what he was thinking but my boyfriend became my husband. A wonderful and supportive husband.
I have since had two more struggles with back pain and received a recent diagnosis of degenerative disk disease. That on top of all the other co-morbidities has pushed me to have surgery. I want to live a long, active life.
SO... in less than a week I begin my third try at a great life. But this time I have a fantastic husband, three motivating nieces, supportive family and friends, a wonderful church family and a renewed chance to do it right!
