Quick Overveiw about my weight journey

Here we are a new year! Cant believe its 2013! We should have some flying cars and house robots! Where is my Rosie to wash my dishes?! Ok...showing my age.......Well lets get this in high gear!
I am so excited to say I weigh 52 lbs lighter than I did this time last year! It could have been more but I really didnt give a care till around May. So I am hoping this year will give me the time to get to my goal weight which is 150. That means I have 81 lbs to go! So do the math....yes Im at 231 as of today.
My highest weight was 294. Well that I ever saw on the scale anyway. So Im down 63lbs from my highest. Its amazing how that change can make a person feel. Now to only get under 200!! I cant wait to see 199 on that scale! I am going to PARTY!!!

Well all my life I have been overweight. The big girl. The one with the pretty face. We all know what that means. I guess the weight really started packing on in the 3rd grade. At least that is what it looks like from my pictures. It just got worse the older I got. I really cant remember my weight or size when I graduated from High School. Im going to guess and say around an 18. Im a 18/20 now, and I think I look like I did in my pictures. I really wish I knew for sure.

I grew up in a pretty poor family. We were feed, oviousley, but not with healhthy foods. All I knew was soda and sweet tea. Only health nuts drank water. Typical meal was fried something with a side of fried something with a side of biscuits and gravy. So of course that is what I learned to cook. When I was older maybe teenage , I knew something had to change. Yea right, making a whole family change the way they eat and live....forget that sista! So I gave in. Accepted it. This is what I mean to be. Im nothing more. There is no use.

In 2006 I met my husband. Im sure I was around 270 then. Why he even looked twice at me still puzzles me. He was from a different land. Different people. Not PACOLET. Not this small town where everyone thinks the same. He thought for himself and really opened my eyes on a lot of things. He isnt the healthest of the health nuts....but he did explain to me organics and natural foods. Never knew such a thing exsisted. I was 27 at the time. Sad. So that really made me think about what I was putting in my body. Well we were married and had a baby in 09. I still hadnt made much change. I had hit my all time high and tried to cut back and lost about 10 lbs by the time my son was born.
After my son was born and all he did was cry and scream and cry and scream, I noticed my self in the kitchen, torn slobby tank top on, tiny baby screaming his lungs out in the next room, and me finishing up the crumbs from a large size bag of doritos.....that I had just opened. It was like I blacked out. I eat the WHOLE bag! And didnt think twice. This was the first time I realized I was an emotional eater. It had never hit me before. All those times I was upset about my weight, I eat. The times I failed a test, I eat. The times I was left out , I eat. The horriable marriage I had went through before, I eat and eat and eat. This was more than just food. This was my emotions. Much deeper.

The starting of the summer last year 2012, my then 2 and half year old, was playing in the front yard. He then procedes to take off running. Yes running, towards the road. The busy road. Our drive way is about a 10th of a mile, so he had some time for me to catch him right? Ummmm....no. I couldn't. I could not catch my own child that was running toward a busy road. Now its Pacolet, small no where town, but still its a road with a car or 2 that could hit my child. He finally stopped. I finally caught him. Huffing, puffing, huffing, puffing. This is when it hit me, something has to change.
I cant live this way. Or not live this way. I cant out run my 2 yr old son. Which means I cant do a lot of things with him. I cant take him to disney world or carowinds. I wont be able to get on kiddy rides or take him swimming. Ill drop him off at school and they will all make fun of his big fat mama. So now this affects more than me. Something has to change. Its in my mind now. In my soul. In my heart.

So lets do this. Full speed. All feet ahead. No looking back. No stopping and smelling the flowers, or biscuits or cakes.

The eating habits had to change. I believe that making small changes that you know will stick are better than setting yourself up for failure. I let myself have ONE soda a day. I did this for a month or until I knew I could cut it out. Seems like it took about a month. Now I drink only water. This includes diet sodas. Food. Cut back! I would simply eat only half of what I would normally eat. Then I started to give up food. I gave up fast food. Read the ingrediants to most of this stuff and it will turn you off completley! Slowly I started eating more salad. More grilled veggies. Dont even bother buying

I lost about 20lbs making these small changes. By May I started looking into gyms. I knew I had to excersise. I knew that was part of the deal. I would walk the neighborhood. It wasnt getting it. I would go one day here, wait a week then go again. So I did my homework and chose a gym that had group classes and was close enough to my house that I knew I would go. A lot. Like 4 to 5 times a week.
I love the gym I choose. They were so kind and nice to me from the beginning. I was weighed and measured in the beginning. Ill be sure to get those numbers. And I just jumped in full force and started doing classes! And days I couldnt make a class, I would go get on that treadmill and walk! Each time I would go I would do a little more.

Now I am down to 231lbs. I feel great. I went from wearing lane bryant size 28 and 26 blue jeans to size 18. And acutally the 18s are big, but the 16s are small. I never would have thought I could have done that. Never. I thought I was just stuck at being this big ol blob.
I never thought I would look forward to go clothes shopping. I can actually see the "other side" of the store in sight. And some of my tops can already come from there. I can almost get in Old Navy Jeans.
That is a big deal for me!

I look forward to what this year brings. I hope that January 2014 Ill be posting with even better results. I hope that I can encourage someone by this blog page to know that they can do it. No matter where they are starting from. I also hope I can be encourage by others out there that know where I have been and where I am coming from!