A Little History...

I want to give a little history on who I am and how I got to this point in my life.  Things that may help and things that won't help.  The best way to start that is to tell you about my own journey.  I have copied a part of an old blog I had on here to kind of give a little history about me...

I guess I should start at the beginning. I was very overweight a few years ago. I started working out, eating better and managed to lose 100 pounds! I have been able to maintain that weight for over a year, but I still need to lose some more to really get to a healthy weight. To be completely honest I was quickly approaching the 300 pound mark before this journey began. I could not believe my eyes when i saw that scale! I was just a few pounds away from 300!! No one really knew my weight, I kept it a very good secret and honestly I hide it well. I was overweight but ask anyone and they never would have believed I weighed that much. I got on the stick and started working out at Curves, eating right. No more going out to fast food, and eating more fruits and vegetables and cutting the carbs out. I will get more into a food plan in one of my other posts. The biggest thing for me though, was that I did this all by myself. I didn't go to any meetings, no surgeries. Just me working harder than I ever did in my life.
So now I want to start this year off on the right foot. Eating right exercising and getting myself healthy and able to run my 5k. This is a huge deal for mebecause I HATE to run!! But, it is a goal I want to fulfill. I want to lose these last 25-30 pounds and get myself to the point that next year at this time, I will not be setting a resolution to lose weight.
This blog is my accountabilty. I want to do something for me, and journaling my progress and charting my accomplishiments is what I feel I need to do to get where I want to be. This will be the place I will vent about my kids, struggle with my food and complain about exercising. But it will be something I am doing for me.

I have been looking through some old pictures last night looking for some before and after ones to post on here. As I look through them I just can't believe how I ever let myself get that big. I was married at that time, and was happy at times with my life. My mom died right after I gave birth to my youngest daughter, and I turned to food to comfort me. My mom was a wonderful cook and was always struggling with her weight for as long as I can remember, my dad was overweight also. I think I wanted to take my moms place in our family, and become the nurturing soul that she was to all of my siblings and to my dad. One way for me to do that was to cook and cook the good meals she did. I don't know maybe even in a way if I started to look like her or had the same body shape as her maybe I would feel she was still around. My mom and I were very close. She was my best friend. Not a day would go by that I didn't talk to her 2,3 even 4 times a day. When she died it hit so hard, but people would always tell me how much I looked like her, and I guess I wanted to keep that going by gaining the weight. Now I was always overweight. I have struggled with it my whole life but never like I did a few years ago. In reality this has been a cleansing for me to get this weight off and to realize I am not my mother and I can't take her place in my life or my siblings or even my dad. She is irreplaceable.

Here are some before pictures.

Now I will say I did do that 5k actually I did 5 of them.  I love doing them and I went on and lost another 33 pounds.  I am in the best shape of my life, physically, emotionally and spiritually.  I am happier than anytime in my life.  I divorced the man who was enabling me to become a person I didn't like and met a man who is truly the love of my life.  I have great kids, and I love living the life we live.  I love being healthy and trying my best to be healthy.

Here is an after picture.  I am truly happy being at the place that I am in life right now.