The last installment on my journey saw me still 40 pounds overweight from having twins and finding myself pregnant with number four.  While I did not gain massive amounts of weight with the fourth pregnancy, I did start off at too high a weight so was in a bit of a quandry.  I couldn’t, or shouldn’t, diet while pregnant but did not want to lose the momentum I had gained thus far.

Needless to say, I topped this pregnancy out at around 200 pounds.  Yes, that is a 5 foot, 4 inch person carrying around all this weight.  Never once did it occur to me, back then, that this was not healthy.  I had no pregnancy health issues and had a full term – actually 12 days late – baby girl.

With four children under the age of four, life was hectic.  I was preparing bottles and breastfeeding.  I was considering going back to work and considering becoming a stay at home mom.  My head was all over the place and yet nowhere at all.  I totally threw myself into raising kids and stopped thinking about me.  Two years later, pregnancy four came and went without any issues.

Four years after that, pregnancy five came.  This one was different.  I was too heavy.  I didn’t feel I was eating enough.  I was diagnosed with pregnancy-induced hypertension.  I had blood pressure so high that my OB/GYN eventually put me on blood pressure medication.  I didn’t feel good a lot of the pregnancy but a good portion of it was in hotter months so I blamed it on the heat.  I was eventually told to have a C-section about two weeks early due to my blood pressure issues.  Sure enough, once baby was delivered, my BP dropped to pre-baby levels.  Life was good and I was done with having children.  That was 1994.

I know many people will find it hard to believe but it took me 13 years to really come to terms with the fact I needed to change the way I was living.  In that time, my marriage ended.  I had four children graduate from high school and go to college.  I had no “little” kids anymore.  I could go out and walk, or – as the case would end up being – run, when I wanted without worrying about a babysitter.

Also, in that time, I had learned a bit more about what was coming at me if I didn’t make some drastic changes, and soon.  My father was an insulin-dependent diabetic.  My mother was a diabetic who controlled her disease with medicine and diet.  My father and my mother both have high blood pressure.  I could not keep going as I was in 2007 without knowing that I was in for trouble the rest of my life if changes were not made.

Maybe it was my parents’ health at the time.  Maybe it was the fact I was almost 46 and knew that 50 was approaching but I went to a good friend’s for a party Labor Day weekend in 2007.  I stepped on her bathroom scales that day and when I stepped off, my mind was made up.  The following Monday, I started “running.”

I say “running” because when I first started, I couldn’t really run.  I would run about 20 seconds and huff and puff my way for a minute or two.  Then, I would run a bit again.

I am sure there is more to come.  I haven’t gotten to actually racing yet and there is the eating component to healthy living.  I figure this is probably as lengthy as a piece should be, though.  You can read installment one here and installment two here.