Three Years and 50 lbs Ago

So much closer to my goal weight!

Once upon a time, there lived a girl who just loved food. LOVED it. It was no secret, because all her life, she was chubby...or according to the evil medical terminology - obese. Yea. At 204 lbs and 5'7", I was obese. The top left picture is the one that finally opened my eyes.

That was back in 2009, when I was living in Croatia and eating all of the goodies my family bestowed upon me. It was also after college, where I gained about 40 lbs over the course of 4 years. It just creeped up on me somehow. I don't even remember it getting so bad. That picture showed me and I knew I had to make a change.

I was depressed at the time since I just graduated and everyone was dying to hire me. Except they weren't. I didn't have a real job for a whole year. So I decided to work on myself instead. Over the course of several months, I managed to lose 25 lbs and felt good. I had done it by completing the Couch to 5K program and began running 5Ks for {fun}. And I hated running. So much so, that I would force myself out of bed in the morning before I could even see and before my brain knew what was happening...and just start running. The hardest part is getting started.

Find friends to encourage you!

Once I was on track, I made friends who also liked running (I still hated it until about 1 year after starting) and started doing races with them. I won't pretend exercising is fun. It's hard. It hurts and I've wanted to cry a lot. But I've learned that you have good days and AWFUL days. If you can work through the rough days, you'll be so proud of yourself.

I had a terrible day yesterday at boot camp. Lap 1 (out of 6): I got a cramp and wanted to fall over and call it quits. Instead, I walked for a bit until the cramp went away and pushed through the rest of the work out. My time sucked. But I FINISHED. And I felt good about it.

The most I've ever run: 10 miles

My goal this year is to run a Half Marathon. I signed up for one yesterday, the RunGirl 13.1 on December 9th in Houston. I'm both excited and terrified. When I ran the 10 mile race in Austin a few months ago, I had not trained. Not because I thought I could do it without training, but time just flew and the race started before I knew it. I WAS doing boot camp several times a week, so my endurance was pretty decent. My time for the race was 1:48. It felt great! I will definitely train for the Half Marathon and have already found some friends interested in signing up with me!



Stay Active!

 I love my family, but our genes are what I call fat genes. I know that I have to be careful what I eat and I have to exercise more because I'm more apt to gain weight. It's just fact. I can either sit on the couch and be fat or get off my butt and move! I signed up for kickball, I play softball now and I go to boot camp about 3 times a week. On top of that, I started cycling recently and I hope the change of pace will help me break through my weight plateau.

22.5 Mile bike ride on the 4th of July

I won't tell you that I only eat salads and work out every minute I'm awake. That's silly. I eat mostly fruits, veggies and lean meat...but occasionally I cheat. If I know I will cheat (like on the 4th of July), I will try to work out extra to make up for it. It may not be a proven method, but I'm still the girl that loves food. A LOT.



Work out buddy

My boyfriend has helped a lot with this entire process. He's there at boot camp, sweating and cursing our trainer under his breath while STILL providing motivational and encouraging words to me. I'm not kidding about crying at boot camp. I've come close so many times. I've punched my trainer (jokingly...mostly) and told him I hate him. We have a love/hate thing going on. I love him when I'm not there and my pants are falling down (dropped 6 pants sizes by the way!), but I hate him when he tells me to do 50 box jump burpees. So, it helps to have my boyfriend there as a buffer, telling me I'm doing great. He's kind of awesome.

So, here I am, some 50+ lbs lighter and happy with the progress. I'm still not done, and the progress has slowed down lately, but I'm not giving up. If anyone is reading this and needs motivation, I am rooting for you! Don't give up! Cry if you need to, but keep going. Sweat is just your fat crying, right? ;)