Work In Progress

Well this is my first blog. I am hoping that by blogging I can look back at my journey and see the progress I have made in becoming the best me that I can be.

I started my weight loss journey in April of 2008. I was 34 years old and woke up one morning and felt like I was 88 years old. My whole body hurt, and it was an effort to walk to the bathroom. Right then that was my "aha moment" of knowing that I did not want to feel this way and worse for the rest of my life. I did not want to develop more health problems and decided that I wanted to live a healthier lifestyle. Over the course of a year an a half I lost 93 pounds. I started by doing The Biggest Loser online program which is basically counting calories and exercising. I started off slowly with my exercise by doing low impact DVDs at home. After losing 60 pounds, I knew I was not pushing myself enough and came across a trainer who helped me to lose another 30 pounds. I got ten pounds away from reaching my goal weight, but it did not happen.

Life got in the way. I swore to myself that after losing all of that weight I would NOT gain it back. I have gained 48 pounds of that weight back. I have always put my schooling and work first. I continued to do that after I lost weight, but I also came out of my shell and was much more social. I graduated with my Ph.D. after losing the weight and had a lot more time to go out with friends. I was going out to eat frequently and drank a lot more alcohol. I stopped tracking my food and slowly was not exercising at all that alone consistently.

The major thing that I have discovered along this almost four year journey, is that one of the major reasons I gained the weight back is that I was lacking self love and confidence. That is what has held me back from living the life I have wanted to live all of my life. I have reached many goals for myself such as receiving my Ph.D., but that was something I was good at. Living a healthy lifestyle was something that I never thought I would truly be good at. I never lived a healthy lifestyle growing up and never had anyone to show me how to do it. I taught myself along the way, but did not believe in myself that I could keep it going.

Now I continue my journey to have confidence that I can live a healthy lifestyle for the rest of my life and will be able to do so. I am a work in a progress :0)