Greetings

I am Katie, and I am the other person writing on this blog.  Like Megan already said, we met in college, back in 2004.  Despite our distance, we’ve been through a lot together.  We probably would even live together now if I hadn’t gone and gotten married in 2008 or western Washington’s persistent clouds didn’t depress her.

Megan and me at my wedding, July 2008

To get to the gritty stuff, I’ve been overweight … I think… all of my teen/adult life.  I say “I think” because back in 2002-2003, I think I was pretty thin but I had no access to a scale to tell you and society had brainwashed me into believing that because I ate, I was super fat and needed to lose weight.  Chances are I was still overweight because my family has always been overweight and I was wearing size 12 jeans.  But then again, I think I was never healthier.  I lived on a farm in Iowa at that time, and we grew our own food.  My dad baked wheat bread every day, and most of our protein came in the form of free range chickens and their eggs.   Eating doesn’t really get any more local than that, which is one of the pillars of my healthy eating belief system.

However, that was the food we had available.  Once I moved away to go to college, I didn’t have that available.  Instead, I went off the deep end.  Our college has an amazing chef that serves unlimited portions, and so there is a joke there that you don’t gain the freshmen 15.  Rather, you gain the freshmen 50.  Mid freshmen year, I weighed 175.  By the time I got married in 2008, I was around 210.  Granted, some of that came from gaining employment in the sit-on-your-ass-all-day sector, but still, I knew I wasn’t doing things I should have been doing.

Since then I’ve educated myself a lot about nutrition.  A LOT.  I look back to the food they offered at the cafeteria, and I think about how I could have made much better decisions.  I could still make better decisions.  Despite my knowledge of nutrition, as of this morning, I weigh 220, which is actually down 25 pounds from my highest weight of 245.  And I don’t have Megan’s height to excuse me at all.  I’m 5’6”.  So, I’m very much obese.  Ultimately, according to charts, my goal is to be in the 150s, and I’d like my pant size to be in the single digits.

But a number on the scale isn’t my—or Megan’s—ultimate goals here.  Instead, we want to live a healthy life.  For me, that means gaining strength, endurance, and nutritive eating habits.  This post is already long, so I’ll go into detail more about these in my next post.

With love,

Katie