| What made me change the way I ate? Simple…the way I felt! I hadn’t felt good for a long time. I was overweight, tired and achy, uncomfortable, and I hurt a lot. I was unhappy with the way I felt! I was tired of feeling that way and wanted to be able to move easily and freely, get healthy, be active, and get my weight to a healthy BMI. I was addicted to unhealthy food. I decided that I was worth it to get myself healthy and in a place where I was comfortable with myself and felt good. I had to acknowledge my addiction and take action to change it. I decided I was going to focus on self-care for myself and that meant a lot of change and some new eating and exercise habits. It is ok to focus on ourselves and take the time to make sure we are giving ourselves good nutrition, plenty of healthy movement, good rest, time to ourselves, and time doing things we enjoy. “Self-care is something that refuels us, rather than takes from us” - Agnes Wainman. There is a difference between self-care and self-indulgence. I’m still working on identifying self-indulgence in areas of my life. My starting weight was 290.5 pounds on March 15, 2022. I’m 5 foot 4 and was considered morbidly obese. Which means I was so overweight that it was basically killing me. That’s what the “morbid” part really means. I wasn’t always overweight. I was pretty thin throughout my life until my late 30s or early 40s. I’ve pretty much always eaten the standard American diet. I was nutrition deficient and addicted to food. I had tried Weight Watchers, counting calories, tried Adkins, Nutrisystem and tried moderation. I lost weight several times only to go back to my previous eating habits and gain it all back, plus more as time went on. I was less and less active during this time. Our entertainment often involved food and meeting people at restaurants for a meal. A lot revolves around food, vacations, holidays, birthdays, and celebrations of all sorts. | 
