This is me: Pain and Joy

I have struggled with my weight since middle school.  I would gain, then lose, then gain, lose, gain, lose...the ultimate yo-yo.  I was thin in high school, I was chunky in college, but I wasn't really fat.  I met my husband in May 2004.  We went to high school together, but never dated.  He had been "in love" with me (or so he says) when we were in school and had to have a chance to date me.  So we started to date.  Our relationship was sorta tumoultuous, and I won't get into specifics here, but there were red flags.  Nevertheless, he joined the Army in 2005 and we were married in 2006.  I knew he was going to deploy, and I was so scared!  We began to fight a great deal and I was convinced that it was because of the upcoming deployment.  In January 2007 my husband deployed to Iraq.  I was devastated and missed him everyday so much I couldn't breathe.  And I ate a lot...and drank a lot.  In March they sent him home for R&R (yes, only 2 months after he left) so we had a nice month together celebrating and what not.  Then he left to return to Iraq, and I was once again distraught.  And I ate, a lot...and I drank a lot.  In April of that year President Bush announced that the US Army troops would be staying for 15 month deployments and that would apply to those already deployed.  I mean talk about the worst news, I couldn't believe it.  They only received the one R&R, so that meant I wouldn't see my husband for over a year!  I'll never forget, he called me on the web-cam and we were chatting, missing each other, loving each other, etc and you know when you video chat you can see your picture.  I COULD NOT BELIEVE WHAT I LOOKED LIKE!  I was SO embarrassed!  I was 178lbs, the heaviest I had ever been. 

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**THIS NEXT PART IS HARD FOR ME TO TALK ABOUT, BUT FOR THE INTEREST OF HONESTY IT MUST BE SAID SO I CAN SEE WHERE I WAS AND WHAT WAS HAPPENING, AND WHERE I AM GOING**

Everyone has there issues.  I loved food, not going to lie, but I was in a different type of situation.  At the time I didn't realize it, but my husband was an emotionally abusive person, especially when he drank.  He would tell me how fat I was all the time.  Not just hey you're fat, but really, really hurt me.  I honestly don't know why I stayed, but I did...I thought if I could just love him enough, he would love me too and stop drinking and being so awful...such a fantasy.

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So I decided that I was going to lose that weight and get myself skinny for my MAN!  He was going to be BLOWN away and think I was super sexy and I was his favorite thing in the world and love me forever and yada-yada-yada.  So it was April 2007 and I joined Weight Watchers (BEST PROGRAM EVER).  Below is what I looked like when I joined WW:

Needless to say I had a LONG way to go.  This picture is one of the best pictures I can find that really showcases just how out of control my weight had gotten.  When I joined, I jumped in with both feet.  I was going to do this and I was going to do it well.  I drank 96 oz of water a day, I ate only WW recipes, and since it was just me, I could cook whatever I wanted!  It was fabulous!  Now I am not going to lie, I still had some boundary issues.  I would eat a great breakfast and lunch and then at night I would go home and drink a bottle of wine and eat a can of green beans...definitely not the most healthy, but I stuck to my points target and didn't go over.  I worked really hard.  I made some friends in the group and we would hang out occasionally, but I was also really depressed and hated to go out anywhere cause I was unhappy.  And quite frankly embarrassed by the amount of alcohol I needed to drink everyday.  BUT I lost the weight, I was feeling pretty fantastic.  I started going out with friends more, so I wasn't alone all the time, having fun and trying to just be 27.  My husband was going to be home any month now and I was going to enjoy my Nicole time, because I knew when he got home I was going to be all about him, I ALWAYS was all about him.  I was feeling pretty amazing and excited about our reunion.  When my husband came home from Iraq, and I looked like this:

I had lost over 50lbs in about 9 months.  I was so proud of myself!  I felt great!  I looked great and my husband was finally home to me!  This life I had dreamt about was finally going to happen.  He was going to love me and treat me the way I always wanted him to and we were going to be so happy people were going to hate us...didn't work out that way, I'm afraid.  Turns out the tour wasn't very helpful for my husband's addiction to alcohol, and in fact, he had become meaner than he was when he left.  I knew we would have some things to work out, but I never thought we would have to go through what we did.  He would drink to much and put me down, I wasn't fat anymore, so he would call me selfish and conceited.  Anyway he could hurt me, he did.  I think it made him feel stronger and powerful and in the beginning I tried to deal with it because I knew he suffered from PTSD, and I loved him so much.  I just wanted him to be happy, and I hoped we were moving past this stage of anger.  But I quit wanting to be around him because he just hated me so much.  I couldn't take it and I began to eat again.  Plus all of the healthy choices I made while he was away, he would make fun of me for.  "Why are you eating like a rabbit"; "I don't like turkey sausage"; "I'm not eating that crap"; etc.  And slowly I began to eat junk again.  I was sick of the griping and I just caved.  He didn't support me, and I look back on it now and I realize that his lack of support was what did me in.  I didn't need that, I didn't need him to put me down all of the time.  I needed to be lifted up and praised.  I needed to feel like I mattered.  So the weight started coming back on.  I remember the moment I quit, I was standing in the kitchen and he had said some crap comment to me about how I used to be fat, and I was like ok, he is a jerk if I am skinny or if I am fat: i'm eating the hell out of this sub...and it was over from then on.  Here I had worked so very hard to get myself happy again and he stole that from me.

From here things went progressively downhill.  I kept trying to stick it out.  I was losing myself, all my thoughts and feelings were centered around him.  What could I do to make him happy, how can i get him to feel better, what can I say so that he sees that I love him and want his soul to heal.  All I wanted was for his soul to heal.  I thought if I could just keep going, keep loving him, he would feel it, get it, know it and he would stop.  In 2009 he was transferred to a new Unit, and he promised it was the place we were and it would get better.  But it didn't.  It got worse.  Now it wasn't only drinking, but gambling.  Did you know that gambling is just as addictive as any other drug??  He was worse on gambling than he EVER was on anything else...it was insane.  December 2009 he put us in the hole right before he deployed to Afghanistan, and I told him that I loved him, that I would always love him, but I couldn't be with him anymore.  He begged me to stay, but I was done.  I just wanted to go home.  AND THEN:

Yep, pregnant.  What to do?  I thought it was a sign that I needed to stay with him.  So there I was, alone in Washington State, 3,000 miles away from family and friends, pregnant!  But I embraced it and got a job at Motherhood and I made a home for us there.  I waited for him to come home again, I was happy!  I was over the moon!  I had a difficult pregnancy, but I never noticed, took it all in stride.  Gestational Diabetes? Got ya! High blood pressure? No problem!  I was finally having a baby!  Nothing was taking that JOY from me!  I worked so hard, applied those WW principles and added some extra because of the GD, and believe it or not i lost about 10 lbs. Got to a healthy pregnancy weight and was trucking along nicely.  On July 17, my husband came home.  And again, I was so happy to have him back.  He started drinking again and gambling again, and I just ignored it because I was having a baby and I didn't have time to deal with him.  He was a douche-bag again, but I had to ignore him, I couldn't give into his crap.  I was standing in front of the mirror, just out of the shower.  I was looking at my body, i was naked.  I couldn't believe how happy I was...he walked into the room and said: "What are you looking at?  Your saggy titties?"  I was flabergasted.  Stuff like that was the type of thing he just would say to me, out of nowhere.  But I ignored him.  On July 21, 2010, I went to the casino at 10:30 to pick up my husband.  We only had one car and he was drunk, so I went to pick him up.  He had lost money again and so we couldn't afford a cab.  I was 7 months pregnant.  When I arrived he was still at the table.  I guess he got into it with one of the other patrons, and he was asked to leave.  There was a fight, I got in the middle.  We left before the cops were called, and he was told not to ever return.  We got home, he passed out, I went upstairs to read.  At approximately 1:30AM I felt a pop in my "area".  I went into the bathroom and there was gushing.  Yep. My water broke. I was in denial, but it did.  I went to get him, but he wouldn't budge, so i drove myself to the hospital.  In the middle of the night.  Pregnant and gushing fluid.  I was checked in immediately and rushed into the Labor and Delivery Wing.  They of course tried to stop labor, I was only 31 weeks pregnant.  I was in denial that I was in labor, so I clung to the hope that we would stop labor and worst case I was going to be in the hospital for 8 weeks.  However, my baby was not wanting to stay in the safe confines of my womb, and 32 hours later, Juliet was born.

Juliet was in the hospital for almost 4 weeks.  She was the only thing that kept me sane and was the deciding factor in my exodus from my marriage.

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I tried and tried, but I had to go.  I had developed some sort of super mommy gene.  What I had dealt with for so long, the pain and disrespect, was unacceptable for my daughter.  We went back and forth, he tried to stop drinking for about 2 weeks, but as soon as life got too stressful, he was drinking again.  The ups and downs of that ride was a catalyst for my emotional eating.  I remember rocking Juliet to bed at night and eating york peppermint patties, thinking they are only 1 pt a piece, surely this isn't so bad.  I also felt empty inside, like I had a hole in my stomach.  And because I was the only one that would take care of Juliet I couldn't fall apart, she had enough of that as it was!  I finally decided to go back to the East coast.  I needed a break.  I was gone 3 months.  When I came back, I was determined that he would change or I was gone.  I had checked out, and was basically trying to give him the chance to do right by Juliet.  We went to his parents in July 2011 to celebrate Juliet's first birthday, and he wanted to party the whole time we were there.  That was the end of that.  I left.  I was miserable, depressed and OVERWEIGHT AGAIN!

I joined WW again in August, 2011.  I weighed 182.4lbs.  The heaviest weight I had ever been.  I have been on WW religiously ever since then.  Since August 2011 I have a total loss of 33lbs.  I am still working on it.  I want to reach my ultimate goal by August of this year.  I will post those goals in a separate post.  I know that I can do this, this time it's for me, and not for anyone else!  I will live a healthy lifestyle for my daughter to see as she grows older.  I am so blessed to have friends (especially Hollie) and family to stand beside me and help me through this challenge. 

At my cousin's wedding January 25, 2013