Before and After

In 2002 we took a vacation to Disney World.  After we got home, we watched a video of our adventure, at which time I experienced my first smack in the face of "Oh my gosh, is that what I LOOK LIKE!?! oh no..."
"Please tell me that is not what I look like, cause that person in that video is not who I see in the mirror... is that what everyone else sees? That is NOT me..."
Having babies has definitely been the main factor in me realizing I didn't know how to be healthy. And I needed to figure it out pronto, cause I did not want to look like that person in the vacation video.

I seriously didn't know how to be healthy. After my 3rd child was born, my lack of knowledge was becoming very evident in my face and body.
With the first 3 babies I had just continued my high school and newlywed way of diet and exercise which basically was eat fat-free food as much as I wanted (like fat free fig newtons, pretzels, and redvine licorice, yeah - I was clueless) and go jogging now and then if I ate fattening chocolate. I was a size 12 all through high school and was happy when I got back to size 12 after the first 2 babies.

After baby 3, I read Marilu Henner's book Total Health Makeover that taught me how to eat, and it was a way that really worked for me. I exercised the Body for Life way, and experienced a total paradigm shift and was amazed with myself when I reached a size 6. As a teenager I had labeled myself "I am a big boned soccer player, I am size 12, that's who I am." I was totally on the ball after that and with babies 4 and 5 (top weight pregnant with 4 was 164, with #5 was 167

After my 8th, I got to size 4/6 again - no full body shot but think my face here shows that I'm figuring it out and working at it.

In summer 2015 I had my 10th. We spent about 4 months of that pregnancy in Brazil. I got up to 190 this last pregnancy. Baby was 8.1. He's almost 3 months old and I weigh 157 now and am slowly getting it off - slow and steady. I've been eating super healthy the past month but baby doesn't like my skim milk much so he's not nursing much.

As the cute kids kept coming, I tried out different things - gym membership, Pilates, Spinning class, a half marathon, P90X, Kristi Approved/Live the Live, Insanity ~ I was always in search of a workout program that would work as a lifestyle for me as busy mom.
I enjoy Zuzka workouts that I can do at home and usually do some modified version of those now. Keeping my workouts to about 20 minutes and eating healthy to clear my clog.

Update July 2019 - My little Peter, baby 12, is almost 6 months old. He is so lovely. I am 146 right now, which is the new low I hit this past week. I'm just off a month of no sugar, had some birthday cake and vegan ice cream last week though. I'm aiming for a mostly non-sugar and non-processed food lifestyle.

Update April 2020 - I'm still in the 140s. I actually got to 140.0 in October, but I have not been able to get below that into the 130s. I was 142-146 this week. Last week I was 143-149. Peter is still nursing. Is my body holding onto the weight cause of the stress of not sleeping through the night and still nursing? Maybe. We are getting family pictures taken next Thursday. Hope to work off some of it this week, I've increased to 3 miles 3x a week instead of 2 miles.