I have struggled with my weight my entire life. I was raised by a single grandmother who was a great cook. Weekend breakfasts often included homemade biscuits with ham and red eye gravy and rice. That has to be at least a zillion carbs! I was a book worm from an early age so the only exercise I got was in gym class. One of the more painful memories of my childhood was of having to order special gym clothes because I was too big for the standard sizes.
By the time I was 14 I tipped the scales at 185 lbs and wore a women’s size 18-20! By then my mother had moved to the DC area to escape an abusive relationship and met the man who was soon to become my stepfather. I rarely saw my biological father and really wanted my mother to get married to someone nice. They told me that if I lost 20 lbs, they would get married. They may have been just teasing me but I took the notion seriously. That was the moment when I went on the first of many diets.
That diet was self made and simple: no breakfast, a green salad and a diet soda for lunch and a single serving of whatever we had for dinner (as opposed to the seconds and thirds I usually had). I don’t remember how long it took but I lost that 20 pounds and got myself a new stepfather in the bargain! I was down to a junior size 15 and my grandmother no longer had to struggle to find age appropriate clothes for me.
The summer before I was to enter 10th grade in a new school, I spent in DC with my mom and stepfather. I experimented with different diets and exercise regimens and lost another 20lbs. By the time school started I was a size 10/12 and many of my friends did not recognize me! What a great feeling that was! In the process of losing the weight, however, I had become a diet junkie. You name the diet and I have done it all out of fear of going back to being that 185 pound girl again.
People in my life who have only know me as an adult think that I have always been the size that I am now. Few know of the many many diets and exercise programs or how many times I have gained and lost the same 15 pounds. All through high school, college, medical training, two pregnancies and raising my children I was either on a diet or putting on the weight that made me need the next one. I am the queen of the yo yo dieters.
In the early nineties I became a facilitator for a popular Faith based weight loss plan and taught weekly classes on the use of its methods. I had lost weight by learning to eat tiny amounts of food only when I was physically hungry and stopping when I was full and wanted to share that message with others. I loved it because you could eat whatever you wanted! You see I really LOVE food! 
I learned over time that, while I could keep my weight down with these strategies (basically portion control), I have not been blessed with genes that will allow me to ignore the content of my food. So at the age of 57 and after hundreds of diets I found myself with the diagnoses of not only hypertension but pre-diabetes as well.
In an effort to “run” from the diseases that were chasing me, I joined a local fitness group, Sisters in Motion, and started walking and running on a regular basis. I became more conscious about what I ate and continued to practice portion control but the more I exercised, the bigger the portions got. I started doing races and fell in love with the half marathon distance and started doing several of them a year as an interval walker/jogger (which I call wogging). Training to do all those races and averaging one half marathon a month emboldened me to eat foods that had forbidden myself in my less active years. So even with all that activity I started gaining weight again! At the same time I had family members and patients looking to me as a role model. Some role model!
I started this blog to share my current journey of seeking to find my way toward the healthiest me I can be, for the rest of my life. I desire that not only for myself but for those of you who choose to come along. I will seek to share healthy lifestyle tips not only about achieving a healthy weight but about all of the aspects of healthy living. In this blog I am not offering medical advice so much as offering information, encouragement and coaching to those of you are seeking to be healthy in body, mind and spirit. I am looking for partners in the struggle.
Yvonne Moore
#ymoore4health
“Dear friend, I hope all is well with you and that you are as healthy in body as you are strong in spirit.” 3 John 1:2 NLT
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