Hi Everyone, welcome to my weight loss journey blog. I have created this blog to document my weight loss journey and to help others that might be in the same boat and wanting to know, that you can do it at any age or stage in your life.
My name is Jennifer and for the last 35 years, I have been overweight. During my teenage years, it wasn’t too bad, my weight would fluctuate but I was still very active and playing sports regularly. After I started having children, I went from being, mostly in shape, to severely obese with each child. I was 5’8 and never more than 165 lbs, which for someone that played all kinds of sports, was not that bad.
When I had my first son, I was 195 lbs when I delivered him. Though the pregnancy was really very hard on me being my first and there were complications. I spent the next week in the hospital while he had to go through surgery and I can definitely tell you, hospital food is absolutely not very health-friendly. Fast forward a couple of years and I find out that I need to have my gallbladder out. After that surgery, all my favorite foods became a problem for my system, since I was no longer able to produce and store the same about of bile that I used to (though I was unaware of it at the time).
For the next 5 years, I struggled with keeping my weight below 200 and then I met my husband and got pregnant again. By the time I delivered our daughter, I was around 230. I would continue to work on my weight, and it would fluctuate up and down +/-10 lbs until 7 years later I would get pregnant again with our son. While 27 weeks pregnant with him, I had to have surgery to have my right ovary removed due to a hemorrhagic cyst that had formed on my ovary, twisting it off and requiring immediate removal. I was then forced on bed rest after the surgery for the next 13 weeks to avoid him ripping open the stitches. They had to perform a c-section type surgery instead of going in laparoscopic and by the time I delivered him, I was 275 lbs.
After he was born, I was so out of shape, I pretty well gave up on trying to work out and get back into shape and my husband accepted me as I was. Once I hit 45, I really decided I was tired of being overweight, My 2 older children are both out of the house, working and in college, Our youngest is still home and more than anything I want to be there for him, while I can. Play outside with him without being physically and mentally tired all the time. I want to have the energy to run around, ride bikes and do the things I really didn’t get to do with him as he was growing. I also want to know, that when I have grandchildren, I can be a part of their lives and run around with them, take them to sports and other events. I want to be healthy enough to watch them grow up.
I recently found Keto and started watching Thomas Delauer and Dr. Eric Berg. I have learned so much from them about how the body truly works, what my limitations are having no gallbladder and starting to go into pre-menopause and how to work with that rather than let it be another hindrance to my weightloss. They have shown me how I can make changes to my diet that actually work and work well for me, allows me to have regular meals with my family and also how I can incorporate those meals into the family meal without freaking my husband out that I am feeding him “diet” food. I am teaching my children how to make much healthier food choices to avoid them ending up like I did and we have fun making healthy desserts that they can enjoy without worrying about the scale moving up on them the wrong way.
When I started this keto journey 8 weeks ago, I was 325lbs. I have lost weight in between then and now, I just didn’t take pictures of the scale at that time. I will be making posts 3-5 times a week with a once a week weigh in as well as creating youtube videos on some of my favorite meals and treats, documenting this journey. It’s been interesting learning how to change things up. Living down here in the South of Louisiana, the food is amazing and I am loving finding new ways to turn all my favorite cajun foods keto without sacrificing flavor. If you have any questions, I have linked my facebook page and you can email me, I will always respond back as quickly as possible. Thank you for joining me on this journey.
Keto Mom 