And so it begins...three months later

My first attempt at blogging.....hmmmm. Welcome! :) If you haven't figured it out, this blog is about my journey to fitness--the long and hard way. Follow if you dare...I didn't know what I was getting myself in for before I committed!

I have never been slender--I love yummy food too much (you know, all the melt-in-your-mouth, heavenly-creamy, way-too-much-butter, rich foods?), and I've always been more interested in art and music than sports.

Then I went to college. Freshman 15.

And Sophmore 10...or so.

After graduation, I married the man of my dreams. That was May 2008. Hubby is naturally slender and fit, as well as being a cyclist and never having given up his love of the boy scout activities of backpacking, canoeing and the likes. What do you know, after we got married, I wasn't walking to classes and everything, I was learning to cook, and I wanted to be a good wife. So out come the good ol' standby's of the creamy, butter, fatty, delicious meals! Oh, sure, he looooved my cooking (except for the exploding meatloaf incident and the stir-fry mush....), but I was eating the same stuff, and I'm not built like he is, nor was I as active.

In the year after we got married, I gained 50 pounds.

Yeah.               Fifty pounds.                   *sigh*

I didn't even notice until 20 had come (in about 2 months), at which point I had far surpassed the 200 pound mark I had sworn I would never let myself go past. I joined Curves, but really, adding moderate excersise 30 minutes 3 times a week was only enough to slow the rapid gain.

By the time I finally adjusted my eating and activity level enough to maintain, I weighed 240 pounds. Even now, it's hard to say that number. I can count on one hand (more like 2 fingers) the number of people I have told that. BUT, I am committed to being totally and completely transparent on this blog, even if my family and friends do read it. It's ugly, but you know what, I will NEVER be 240 pounds again! In fact, I'm already WAY below! Which brings us to what drove me to this.

After gaining the weight, I started losing parts of myself. I have always been a vivacious, bubbly, never-shy, cheerful, helpful, people-person. With the weight also came a shell I had never had. I couldn't make friends in the new city we lived in. I was self-conscious. I was down-cast. I had to put on a "happy front" more often than not. Even hubby John noticed that the young, flirty, burst of sunshine he'd married was slipping away.

Fast forward a year or so to 2010. I started watching The Biggest Loser out of curiosity. Something stirred inside of me. Yes, I was totally one of those fat people that would watch the moving stories and observe the contestants working their butts off, while laying on the couch, crying and eating ice-cream. I still do that, except now I eat pickles instead of ice cream. Oh, and it's after I've worked my own butt off earlier in the day. ;)

I realized that I had lost who I was because of this weight. I have known for forever that the thing I am supposed to do with my life is be the best wife and mother I possibly can be. I wasn't being a very good wife, in some ways. I couldn't be go cycling, or canoeing, or hiking with John, we weren't acting like "newlyweds" anymore, and I had become self-consumed. Even more, it terrified the bejeebies out of me to think about being 240 pounds when I got pregnant, and then getting baby weight on top of that. Not to mention possible complications. I knew I'd be the parent who was sidelined in activities because I either couldn't or wouldn't participate. And then there's the more shallow reasons of just, by golly, I'm 23, and I want to be fun, flirty, and sexy!

So, after many tears, realizations, and conversations with John, I decided NOW was the time to change it. And so I've begun. I'm going to write another post about what I've actually done this summer since I've started my adventure. I wish I would've started this blog 3 months ago, but I guess I was making enough changes already.


This marks another success in my journey though--starting this blog and being more open--and there's no turning back! Watch out world, here I come!