Tonia Haight Walker. Losing Weight Like a Bear

I had fun with this today! The purple shirt used to fit me and it was my paint shirt. I may have stretched it a little bit, but I don’t think that I did. Then I needed some bottoms to go with it while I was painting. I found my son’s paint pants in the same drawer. Yes, my 17 year old who is 6’4” and I thought I wonder.  After I took the knot out of the draw string, they slid right on. 😮😦I just about couldn’t believe it. I asked my son what he thought of my paint pants, he said “I think that I have worn those.” 🤣😂

  I don’t post about my husband very often, but I had to brag on him a little bit. He has lost 100 pounds since he joined me with this WOE. A few years ago, we went to his sister’s wedding and the black suit was very tight on him. He almost couldn’t button it. That was not his heaviest weight either. Now, look at all the room that he has in it.  The other suit has been hanging in the closet for more than 10 years. It was bought about 20 years ago and he had thought that he was going to have to pass it down to one of our boys. Today, it fits like a glove. I’m so happy for him. He is seeing more NSVs now and I am excited to see what will happen in the future for him. Before "Eat Like A Bear"

As I type this, August 13, 2021, it is my 2 year mark since I started this journey.  The first year, I lost over 100 pounds. To be specific, I lost 110 pounds. The second year, the weight loss has slowed down. Earlier this week I had to go get my yearly physical done for my job. When I looked up what I weighed a year ago, it shocked me. I have lost 59 pounds in my second year. All that I could remember was that I had only lost 19 pounds since November. That isn’t very much. However 59 is still a good number for a year. Don’t get me wrong, 19 isn’t bad, but I would have loved to do better in a 9 month period.  I know going forward the number will probably be smaller this next year, but I plan to stay the course and stay focused.  One thing that I thought was exciting about my two physicals was a note that the two different doctors wrote.  Last year, the doctor wrote that I needed to have a consultation about my weight.  This year, even after I told the doctor tha...

       Daniel and I took the three boys on a vacation this last week. In the past we would typically go out to eat once a day, maybe see a show or two, and then go to the pool  a few times, and hang around the room the rest of the time. This year was completely different.       This trip our days were planned around an event that we would go do.  The first day always includes shopping because you have to have groceries. (This day also happened to be my birthday. I have always asked for ice cream on my birthday, even as a kid. I would ask for ice cream instead of gifts. I found Rebel ice cream for the first time ever.  I was in Heaven that day. Thus the grocery store picture has me holding ice cream. No, I didn’t eat them all in one day either.) The second day was Sunday so we went to church and saw some wonderful friends. The third day, we had company come spend the day with us.  Up to this point all normal things for our vacat...

I am starting to see the jealousy and envy in people's eyes.  Hearing words like, "I don't have the will power" or "I wish that would work for me". I know that in order for me to give up the Dr. Pepper, I had to get to a place where my health was more important to me than the Dr. Pepper.  I remember sitting in the Dr. office and telling him that I only drink one a day.  That was right most days, but it was 44 Oz. (no ice) of Dr. Pepper.  Then if my boss wanted to give us a treat, she would buy another one for me.  If I went somewhere and there was nothing else to drink, I would have another one.  I had to believe that giving up Dr. Pepper, pancakes, and waffles was something that I needed to do to lower my sugar in take.  I was to the point that I knew I would be in a wheelchair if I didn't change something soon.  After taking care of my Aunt and doing things for her that she couldn't do for herself any more, I realized that I didn't want my boys...

     I forgot to post this yesterday, so yesterday was the day. I have officially lost 167 pounds which means that I have lost the same amount of weight that my 6’4”, 17 year old weighs. I can’t believe that I was actually able to hold him off the ground for a moment long enough to take the picture of him on my back. I also can’t believe that I used to carry that much extra weight on my body every single day.  Just 40 more pounds to go to be out of the over weight category. I am very excited!

 I have talked about this before when I talked about my husband, but it never hurts to drive it home again.  From April 10th to May 15th I had some extremely stressful days and several emotional days. One of them, I actually went to the kitchen and ate way more calories than I should have. I stuck with keto friendly foods, but not salad. According to the scale, I gained 7 pounds over the course of a week of stress and then I lost 5 of them. So no process according to the scale. Then on May 15th, my husband helped me measure with a measuring tape. Between my arm, bust, bra line, waist, hips and thigh, I lost a total of 6.25 inches with 2 of them coming off my hips.  So how do you measure success? Well, my stressful weeks don’t look like success and the scale didn’t either, but the measuring tape sure says that a lot of progress was made.  Don’t get me wrong, I do want the scale to move again and soon, after all, I am almost in “ONEderland”.  However, never let yo...