For as long as I can remember, I have always stayed relatively active. I would play softball and golf regularly – 3 to 4 times a week. Once my daughter started playing travel softball and travel volleyball, my golf and softball time disappeared as did any work towards keeping fit. Working a desk job did not help. I hovered around 300 lbs for about 5 years – playing the occasional round of golf – badly. I tried to continue to play softball but was really unable to move like I wanted to.
My diet was atrocious – a steady stream of “Where are we going for dinner tonight?” – Uno’s, Panera, Subway – we cooked very little at home. Breakfast was Dunkin Donuts and lunch was Subway every day. I also was addicted to Arnold Palmers – the iced tea/lemonade mix – downing a six pack or more a day. Eating badly all day and then coming home to sit and watch TV or play World of Warcraft all night was a devastating combination for my weight and well being.
The biggest nutrition eye opener for me was when I started using MyFitnessPal to record what I was eating and entered the individual sized deep dish pizza from Uno’s and it came up at 1300 calories (more than 2/3 of my daily allotment)… add to that the rest of the fast food during the day and 3000 calories was within range. It was finally right in front of me what I was eating daily and how destructive it was. That was the first step to educating myself that I needed to change the way I eat…