Hi my name is Caroline and I am the wife of a wonderful man serving in the Army. I love him very much and want to get healthy so we can be with each other for a very long time. We are currently living in Germany, and I am finding that since I am of German descent and am getting out on the economy more than my peers over here, I am subjecting my body to the wonderful German foods. However I have noticed, the German people are certainly a lot more active and have a lot less stress in their lives due to their vacation schedules every year. Wouldn't it be nice to be able to take 6 weeks off every summer. I formerly lived in the Pacific Northwest and had no problems with weight or diet there. I had moved there from living in Georgia and at that time my all time high was 172 lbs. Good Southern cuisine I guess! Moved back home to Washington and changed my lifestyle and diet. I went hiking in the mountains with my mom, and went biking on the waterfront. I brought my lunch to work rather than going to fast food places like my co-workers did. I had been "recovering" from a nasty divorce and was losing weight. I met a wonderful man (now my husband) and by the time we married and I moved over here to Germany with him my weight was down to about 139lbs. It had been hard going and that weight had been lost in a 19 month period. I came over here only to over indulge in the yummy food, got stressed out by my husband's 15 month deployment to Iraq, and had my thyroid levels going up and down like a roller coaster. I kept busy while he was gone, by going swimming and started working out at the gym on post. I had developed a cough which did not go away. In going to a doctor, who mistakenly diagnosed me with bronchitis and put me on a steroid inhaler, I ended up in a German hospital due to a very nasty reaction to that and ended up having lots of tests run, and found out I had GERD. The cough was from laryngitis which the GERD had caused. I found myself very limited to the activities I could do. Any type of motion set off my GERD and even after doing simple things like going up stairs I would throw up. I found myself less and less enthralled with the prospect of any type of exercise and would only walk. The weight slowly and very gradually came back up and I am now at an all time high of 178lbs. I have not overindulged with food in quite a while as the reflux pretty much limits what I can and can't eat, however there was my husband's homecoming, and I had to spoil him (and myself) rotten. My husband had been very loving and supportive throughout this whole ordeal and is my partner in this weight-loss/get healthy scheme. We are about to get an elliptical for at home since I prefer working out in the comfort of my home. I have pretty much now received the all clear from my doctor as to diet and exercise and am very excited at using this website as a tool. As an avid baker and wanna-be chef, I love to peruse cooking magazines and my favorite foodie websites. I have found that they also have tools for healthier eating and am happy to start this up at a time of year when fresh local produce will be in abundance. My weakness however is and always will be chocolate. I can not go on without at least a small piece of chocolate everyday. I love cooking with olive oil and also butter (on occasion). I hardly eat beef these days as I noticed it makes my GERD flare up even worse than normal, and find I do not miss it most of the time. We eat more poultry (although typically not at restaurants as chicken gave me food poisoning a few years ago) and seafood now, I do find I am really missing Pacific Northwest Salmon in particular, the Atlantic salmon just does not compare. I also look forward to making more friends on this journey, I came upon this website through another website called the hystersisters.com as I also had a hysterectomy a few years ago.

My goal is to lose weight and to rid myself of the GERD I am suffering from. I have a total of about 43 lbs to lose, maybe just fitting back into a size 8-10 would do me just fine.







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