Catching You Up To Speed: Tired of Being Fat!

So as you may know, I've been struggling with my weight most of my life. When I was 13, my doctor told my Mom and I that I was borderline obese and needed to lose weight. I did, but I gained it all back. Some medical issues came up in high school that caused me to gain 30 pounds in a month. During college, my Mom and I took some blood tests and found out that my cholesterol was high, so I made changes to my diet and exercised, and lost about 40 pounds or so. And then I gained it back. And kept gaining slowly. Every so often I would try to lose again but never was able to make it past the 10 pound mark. By March of 2010, I weighed 186.4 pounds. At 5'2 and with a small frame, that's pretty bad.

My friend Jen, who was an RHD with me at MWSU at the time, had made a New Year's resolution to become more healthy and lose weight. She started going to a weight loss center in St. Joseph, Success Weight Loss, and she really liked it. She was also having a lot of success. In March, over Spring Break, she took me to an exercise class there, and it was tough. But I made it through, and I really liked the folks leading the session. So later that week, I made the commitment and joined up.

At first it was brutal. I was on a 1200 calorie/day diet, along with exercising. I did not think I was going to make it. But they pushed me and told me where I was going wrong with my food choices, and soon enough, I was getting used to it. The exercise piece has been more difficult. I started by walking Shiloh as much as time and weather would allow, and got on my Wii Fit. The pounds started coming off. I hit some rough spots during busy times at work, then with traveling and moving (which I will tell you all about in the next post), but once this academic year began I hit my stride and really got going. The weather was great until November, so Shiloh and I walked everyday. I found a workout DVD that I can actually follow, and it burns a lot of calories. By the time I left for Christmas, I weighed 137.8 pounds--49.6 pounds less than I did when I started!

My goal is 120 pounds. I've been especially bad over the last two weeks while on vacation, so I'm sure I have gained about 5 pounds since. But it'll come off when I get home. I want to hit my goal weight by my birthday, April 6. I'm pretty confident I'll get there. Then the real work starts--maintaining. I think I can do it. I know I can do it. And I will do it!