How Did I Get Here?

As I prepared and ate my lunch today, I was thinking about how it is that I got here...how I got to be 15 pounds overweight, and struggling so much to lose it.

Growing up, I was a skinny kid. Not thin, not fit...skinny. Ribs and shin bones showing skinny. It's not that I didn't eat. I did. A LOT. I guess I was blessed with a fast metabolism or something.

I was 5'8" all through high school, and about 105 pounds. That's really skinny. That's 40 pounds lighter that I am now!

I was very active...cheerleading, track, basketball. I rode my bike and walked a lot.

We moved to a new city for my junior and senior years of high school. I was lonely, so threw myself into the two things I was really involved in: basketball and school. It was the only time I can ever remember getting straight A's! And I also made the varsity basketball team. I think I must have just barely squeaked my way onto the team...wasn't all that good and didn't get much court time during games. But I worked my hiney off during practice!

I was getting a really intense workout about 2 1/2 hours every day. At the end of the BB season my junior year, I was up to 125 pounds...still too light for my height, but in very good shape! It was the heaviest I'd ever been, and I was all muscle.

My senior year, I chose to quit basketball (a hard decision, I'd been playing since the 3rd grade!). I had an opportunity to be a high school intern at a local high tech company, and just couldn't pass up the opportunity. The drop in exercise caused me to drop muscle. I dropped down to 120 pounds, and there I stayed.

I was at 120 my senior year of high school, and my first 4 years of college. I was eating like a horse, and I was eating junk...pizza, nachos, margaritas, burgers, fries.

I was too skinny. In fact, I went in for a free student "fitness exam" at the local health center. They tested all sorts of stuff, and I was within the normal to fit rages...until it came to the body fat test. I laid on a table, and the guy hooked me up to all sorts of electrodes.

Evidently, electricity flows through fat differently than it does through the other tissues in a human body. By turning on the electricity and measuring the resistance to the electricity's flow, they can determine a body fat content pretty accurately.

The guy did the test, mumbled something like "Well, that can't be right", unhooked me, did it again, mumbled a few other statements, and then unhooked me with an exasperated sigh. "I don't know...I think there's something wrong with my machine."

But then he stopped, looked me over, and asked "Are you getting your period?"

Well, excuse me?! I was about 19 years old...this wasn't a topic I was comfortable discussing with the guy at the health center!

"If you're not, then the test might actually be working."

I wasn't. It turns out, I had so little fat, that my body wasn't even working right!

Women are supposed to have more body fat than men, and my fat content was well below what was normal for an athletic man. Like I said...skinny.

And then, I met a very tall, handsome, broad shouldered, green-eyed man. My husband to be.