McSpotty - Rita
August 2009
My name is Rita and I am 43 years old. I am a Michigander through and through. However, my stepfather moved our family to Ohio when I was younger-and so I grew up in the Sandusky area. I then went to college and spent my young adulthood in the Cleveland area. But every summer and every chance I got, I would come home, back up north.
I now live in the Northern Lower Peninsula of Michigan on the southern shore of Burt Lake, with my wonderful husband-whom I married in 2006, and my dalmatian, Bartok. My husband has 3 beautiful children from his first marriage; a son 24, a daughter 23, and another daughter 16.
I am also a musician; a pianist and mezzo-soprano by choice, and organist by necessity. I work as a music director for a church, and as a music teacher.
I have struggled with my weight and with food most of my life. My mother put me on my first diet at the age of eight. Thus began a lifetime of eating issues. I have binged and purged for over 30 years. Purging has taken a variety of forms, from the traditional, to laxatives, to starvation, to compulsive exercise. I’ve done it all.
My highest recorded weight was in college at 218. I joined Weight Watchers in June 2006 at 204 pounds. I very slowly lost the weight – still binge eating and using excessive exercise to lose. I lost 45 pounds in a year and a half and made Lifetime in December of ‘07. I lost the desire to exercise, and still had not addressed the issue of how to eat properly. I promptly gained almost all of it back.
I began WW online in July of ’09 and found the Seriously on Plan thread in August. I began to take being SOP seriously in late October. I got back to goal in December ’09. I am currently over 15 pounds below my original goal and on my way to maintenance. This is the first time I do not feel that, “I can’t wait to get back to my old way of eating.” I don’t want to go back to the old way. I like this way. I have never felt better in my life.
I am so grateful to Leather for offering a hand to me. I am also grateful to Virginia for showing me how to address my issues with sugar. I am so blessed by all the SOP women for their support and their courage.
I now live in the Northern Lower Peninsula of Michigan on the southern shore of Burt Lake, with my wonderful husband-whom I married in 2006, and my dalmatian, Bartok. My husband has 3 beautiful children from his first marriage; a son 24, a daughter 23, and another daughter 16.
I am also a musician; a pianist and mezzo-soprano by choice, and organist by necessity. I work as a music director for a church, and as a music teacher.
I have struggled with my weight and with food most of my life. My mother put me on my first diet at the age of eight. Thus began a lifetime of eating issues. I have binged and purged for over 30 years. Purging has taken a variety of forms, from the traditional, to laxatives, to starvation, to compulsive exercise. I’ve done it all.
My highest recorded weight was in college at 218. I joined Weight Watchers in June 2006 at 204 pounds. I very slowly lost the weight – still binge eating and using excessive exercise to lose. I lost 45 pounds in a year and a half and made Lifetime in December of ‘07. I lost the desire to exercise, and still had not addressed the issue of how to eat properly. I promptly gained almost all of it back.
I began WW online in July of ’09 and found the Seriously on Plan thread in August. I began to take being SOP seriously in late October. I got back to goal in December ’09. I am currently over 15 pounds below my original goal and on my way to maintenance. This is the first time I do not feel that, “I can’t wait to get back to my old way of eating.” I don’t want to go back to the old way. I like this way. I have never felt better in my life.
I am so grateful to Leather for offering a hand to me. I am also grateful to Virginia for showing me how to address my issues with sugar. I am so blessed by all the SOP women for their support and their courage.