dianaschnuth

When my Mom came to visit this past weekend, she brought along the family photo albums for me to hang onto. I mainly wanted to check out the photos of me as a little kid, of Mom when she was my age, of my Memaw when she was Mom’s age.

While paging through the later albums, though, I found some photos I’d rather have forgotten: me when I was obese, back in the early 2000’s. College graduation, wedding, that general era. It’s been a good five years since I lost 50 pounds on the Atkins Diet, and I’ve lost another 15 since. I’d almost forgotten how fat I looked and felt. Aaron, too: I literally almost didn’t recognize him in our family photo with Mom, Gary, and Philip.

I’d been complaining that I’ve “lost that lovin’ feeling” when it comes to my diet. If I needed motivation to get back on program (instead of tracking my food and watching my daily Points balance sail into the negative, and not giving a shit), this was the motivation I needed.

I have about 25 pounds to go before I reach my goal weight. That may not be quite as transformative as that first 50, but it will change me, for sure. My goal is to reach and maintain my ideal weight, so that my future offspring literally won’t recognize the “me” in that embarrassing family portrait.

(I look a lot like my Mom, and she was pretty smokin’ when she was in her twenties and skinny. Maybe I can do almost that well in my thirties…)