Kristin Steede Blog

I was born in Morris, IL on September 28, 1979 as the second of three daughters. My mother tells me that I was the easiest of the children to deliver but the hardest to raise. My father worked as an electrician and provided a nice life for us. I remember having the coolest brass canopy bed with a pastel rainbow canopy and matching blanket. I shared that room with my sister Stephanie and my older sister Karri had her own room.

In 1987, my parents divorced. My sisters and I moved to northern Wisconsin to live with my mother near our grandparents resort on Pickerel Lake. It was during this time that I started to have a noticeable weight problem. It was also during this time that my mother started her battle against alcoholism. She eventually found herself in a 90 day rehabilitation program. During this time my sisters and I lived with our grandparents.

Once my mother returned home she was determined to change her life.

She decided to move away from the small Northern Wisconsin town to start over in the Fox Valley. At first we lived with my aunt and uncle in Little Chute, WI and eventually my mother moved us into our own apartment. She went back to school and ended up working for a small local paper.

She also started dating a man who was from the Fox Valley but also had ties to the northern Wisconsin town we moved from. His parents had a vacation home on the same lake where my grandparents operated their resort. After a few years together, my mother decided to get married and build a new home in Shiocton, WI.

In September of 1992 I started 8th grade in Shiocton. I will never forget starting 8th grade because this was “the year”. I was starting a new school, I was going to be in high school next year,and to me, this was “the year”; I was finally going to lose weight. The school was very small and despite my excess weight, I felt accepted. I had friends and I had fun. In April of 1995, at the age of 15, I entered my first serious relationship with one of my classmates, Nick. We were two completely different people. I was the overweight class clown from a broken home that would say and do anything to be accepted while he was the opposite, tall home-grown basketball player and captain of the baseball team. He was an only child whose parents were high school sweethearts and have been happily married ever since. We were complete opposites but as they say, opposites attract.

Our romance grew from there, but so did the number on my scale. I attended all of his basketball games and he attended all of my family holiday parties. We were on Junior Prom Court together and graduated high school together. After high school we decided to move in together. I like to say he went right from his mothers house to mine.

We had a beautiful outdoor wedding with our closest family and friends. We bought a house and a dog. Life couldn’t get much better than this.

One day Nick and I were standing in the kitchen talking about having kids.Nick simply asked “Are we ready?” In my head I thought, do we have enough room in our home for a child? YES. Are we mature enough to handle the responsibility? YES. Can we financially support a

child? YES. Is my body ready for a child? NO. I was over 350 lbs.

It would take a miracle for me to even be able to conceive let alone have a healthy pregnancy.

Throughout my entire life I was able to brush my weight issue under the rug.I would have the occasional uncomfortable moment, such as breaking a chair or not fitting somewhere, but I would eventually numb my sadness with food. I was the strong confident overweight girl who said “Hey, I may be overweight but I am not going to let that stand in the way of what I want to do!” Next thing you know, I find myself standing in the kitchen and years of ignoring my weight has finally caught up with me. My weight problem had just become a brick wall between me and something I wanted more than anything else in this world; a child.

This, combined with a very uncomfortable vacation in California, sparked me to check out the Biggest Loser page on NBC.com. I came across a posting that they were holding an open casting call in Milwaukee, WI for Season Five of the Biggest Loser and they were looking for teams of two. I immediately picked up the phone and I called my mom to see if she wanted to go. She said yes and off to Milwaukee we went.

We never ended up making the show for season five. We were called for casting on season six and never made that season either but when we got the call for season seven we had a feeling that this could be it. We also vowed that this would be the LAST time we tried. Sure enough mom and I made it out to Los Angeles for the final casting process and we began our journey as Season 7’s purple team and as they say…the rest is history!