Starting Out

I decided to start a blog to chronicle my journey through weight loss and changing my lifestyle to be a much healthier one.  I've been reading a blog written by a friend who is doing the same thing and it is really inspiring and encouraging to me.  I also thought this would be good accountability for me.

So here goes...

I am a 28 year old female, 5'5" and I weigh 247 lbs.  There we go.  I said it.  I put my weight out there for all the world to see.  I think the only people who have been allowed to know how much I weigh since junior high were doctors.  And even then, I was always ashamed and couldn't wait for them to move on from their "You need to start eating more fruits and vegetables, and exercise at least three times a week" speech.  I think I've always had body issues.  And I have always loved food.  And not good food either.  I've only started loving food that is good for me in the past few years.  Food has always been my comfort, my happy place, my calm place.  If I am stressed, I eat; if I am happy, I eat; if I am bored, I eat.  I have come to the tough realization that I have an addiction to food.  It's really hard for me to say no sometimes. There, the second most embarrassing piece of information about me, out there, for all the world to see.

There was one time in m life that I was at a healthy weight.  My sophomore year of high school I joined the basketball team and dropped 25 pounds - down to 140 - pretty quickly.  Obviously, I did not keep it off.  By the time I graduated high school, I think I was up to 180 or so.  And then over my four years in college, it gradually kept piling on.  The highest my weight has ever been, which was just a few months ago, was 258.  The past couple years, I have hovered around 253.

Being overweight all my life, I never thought any boy would want me.  No man would be attracted to my lumpy features.  But, this turned out to not be true.  I did find a wonderful man who loves me just as I am and tells me how beautiful I am to him and how sexy he thinks I am.  This has been great to hear, but it is still hard for me to believe.  Unfortunately, he is also overweight and since getting married almost two years ago, I can see where my eating habits have worsened because of him.  So, we are working to get healthy together.  We've even put some money on it - the person who loses the highest percentage of weight loss by the end of the summer gets $100.  It's not much, but for us it's a lot.

So a couple weeks ago, I started once again to track calories and work out.  However, this time feels different than all my other failed attempts at losing weight.  I feel like I can really succeed this time.  I feel the need to change my lifestyle rather than just lose weight to look good.  I have to change the way I live my life if I want to be around for a long time.  Anyway, I have had success so far.  When I first began I weighed in at 253.4 lbs. and just this morning I am at 247.0.  It feels good to see those numbers go down.  Any weight loss after this will be the least I have weighed in about four years.

These last two weeks have certainly not been perfect.  I have slipped up, I have overeaten, I have not worked out for five days straight, but I have not given up.  In the past, if I had a bad day, I would have quit, proving to myself that I couldn't do this.  This time I don't let those small mistakes and slip ups get me down.  I know that one mistake is just that.  One mistake.  And I get right back in the saddle at the next meal or the next day.

I will try to update often, at least weekly, and I will add pictures soon so that we can all see the physical progress!