Beginning the Journey

Hello,

My name is Jana, I am 25 years old and wanted to share the fresh start to a journey which has come from a lifetime of struggles. I like so many others have had my trials (we all do) I want to share one of the biggest with you and that is the struggle with my weight, to give you an idea let me recap a little of my life. When I was younger I was a healthy (albeit thick and stocky) child with the average adolescent pudge. I believe that I started to put weight on as I got to be about 11 years old where I think I hit about 100 pounds and from there I kept getting heavier. I have always been an exceptionally strong and muscular person underneath all of the padding, which I have used to my advantage and have always been able to perform many strong and arduous tasks. I maintained my weight fairly well in High School around 260 pounds or so (I think that is thanks to PE and the fast paced atmosphere).

I started to really add the weight on after I graduated and started working. I worked as a CNA for a few months after I had to quit College (FVCC) when my fathers health really started declining. I got injured when I worked as a CNA, with tearing in the cartilage of my right knee and had to be out of work. Subsequently about a week after having to be off of work due to the knee injury, I went on a family trip which is when we lost my father. All manner of things seemed to happen at once, my father died due to a major heart attack (he struggled with weight problems, heart condition issues, smoking, etc his whole life). I had to look at surgery for my knee and lost my job the week of my surgery. I had an entire summer of trying to recoup and heal, spiritually and physically, which truly felt as though it was an insurmountable task. The injury to my knee in 2004 is how I met Katherine and Gordon. I was referred to Katherine for physical therapy and was able to heal quickly and regain full use of my knee and was able to go back to work.

One thing that I have realized over the years is diet truly is one of the most important things in a persons life and should be one of the top concerns. The reason I state this is, growing up my mother worked full time and my father stayed at home due to his blindness. He had macular degeneration which caused him to be legally blind. When I started home schooling at the end of fifth grade (11 years old) he was my teacher, and stay at home parent. My father's moto in life was "I don't eat to live, I live to eat", and he meant it. He just simply liked what tasted good, and that meant that what he cooked for all of us (since my mother had to work) was what tasted good, not necessarily was good for you. My father was over 300 pounds when he died in 2004 and was almost 74 years old. I was 19 in 2004 and already over 300 pounds. I had my gull bladder removed when I was 14 due to gull bladder disease & knee surgery when I was 19. When I started working at Teletech after my rehabilitation from knee surgery, I sat all day. I wasn't as active, I was tired all the time and I had picked up smoking. I never smoked very heavily, but any is enough and did so even though I had watched the heart issues my father had, had that weren't not helped by his many years of smoking.

I went from a sit down with Teletech to another sit down job with National Flood Services (NFS). At least my current employer (NFS) promotes good health by having walking challenges, Biggest Loser challenges and a health and wellness community providing informative material and events. It hasn't been until almost 6 years later that I finally realize "Hey, your a mom now, things have changed". That's right, I am a blessed mother of a beautiful and healthy little boy. He is 15 months old now and is gorgeous. If I was not convinced before that I needed to make some drastic changes in my life, I am definitely convinced of it now. All through my pregnancy I had major back pain, hip and sciatica pain and exhaustion. After my son was born I was diagnosed with a large mass in my chest and thought I could be facing cancer. It turned out to be just a large cist next to my heart, but I was told, "if it gets larger then you will need surgery, you can't have surgery until you lose weight". Okay, lose weight or maybe die... you don't realize it but before you even receive news like that, your choices are "lose weight or die", seems extreme but guess what... the weight pandemic that is upon us is extreme.

I started seeing Katherine again this year, 2010, 6 years later after I started having major pain in my back that was causing me to miss work. Since I have started working with Katherine in February of this year we have been trying to heal my back and aide me in losing weight. I have lost 22 pounds since the beginning of the year when I was the heaviest I have ever been of 397 pounds and as of today I am 375 pounds. I have always had support from my mother who has had her own struggles with weight and successes at losing a significant amount. I now have the support of a group of people with the facility and knowledge to aide me in being successful with my journey. I until now have not applied my entire being to the commitment it takes to lose weight. That has changed, this is my life to live, no one else's and I know what I want to look like, I just can't wait to see what I am GOING to look like.

Thank you for reading, and I would love it if you would share your journey. Good luck, just remember "You ARE worth it!".