So, with this new year has come a realization that I really need to do something about my weight. I am not happy with the way I look and feel. Last year in March, after my boyfriend of 3 years broke up with me and I had to move back home to my parent’s house, I decided it was time for a change. I started running (to the best of my abilities) on the ancient treadmill that my parent’s had. I lost 18lbs between March and July of 2011. I went from being 235 to 217, I was sooo happy with myself and the progress I was making! Then the treadmill broke…since it was so old the company did not make the replacement part we needed to fix it so in the garbage it went. My friend generously gave me an old elliptical she had so that I could continue on my path…It sucked! I hate hate hate the elliptical! It’s hard work, and that’s not really why I hated it, because honestly harder work is good when it comes to trying to lose weight. It was super uncomfortable to me. Being 5’10” and the machine being so small, it just isn’t a natural stride for me. It actually caused me more pain than benefited me because it bothered my knee. Needless to say I kinda gave up on working out…Not intentionally of course, but over time my desire to exercise dwindled to nothing and 2lbs away from losing 20lbs, I “gave up”. Every once in a while I got frustrated enough with myself that I would go downstairs and use the elliptical for 30 minutes but I could never seem to stick with it and continue using it. So I’m assuming you can figure out what happened from here…I gained about half of what I had lost back.

Months went by and it seemed that no matter how frustrated I was with the way I looked and felt I couldn’t get myself on that elliptical. It’s hard to motivate yourself to do something you hate doing. After 7 months of failing to stay on track, I started using a great app on my phone called myfitnesspal (also available online at myfitnesspal.com) to track my food and exercise and we got a treadmill again in February! I never thought I’d be so happy to see a treadmill and be excited to be running again. Now, I had no excuse to work out because I finally had a treadmill again, which is what I had been saying I wanted over those 7 months. I joined a 90 day weight loss challenge with my sister in the hopes that that would help to jump start my motivation. I’ve been back on the weight loss track for almost 3 weeks now! I am happy to report that I am 5.8 lbs down from where I started at 226 and current sit at 220.3lbs. It’s an amazing feeling to be losing weight again. Even that little bit of weight has made me feel so much better about myself and is fueling my drive for success. I have finally worked myself up to being able to jog for 10 minutes straight (14 minutes all together out of a 30 minute work out). I’m hoping to be able to run the full 30 in the next couple weeks, then I will work on going longer than that. My goal is to be under 200lbs by summer, with my ultimate goal is to be around 180. That is going to take a lot of work and determination but I know I can do it! I’m so grateful to have amazing friends cheering me on and one of my best friends is actually on her own weight loss journey so we are doing it together. A good support system is especially crucial for me. I can very easily make up excuses to myself as to why I shouldn’t do something, so having someone doing it with me really helps keep me on track.

I’m going to try writing here and keeping a blog, even if it only ends up being for me and no one reads it. I think it will help me in the long run. But, I am notoriously bad at keeping journals, etc…even when I want to, so we will see how that goes. Hopefully I’ll have some pictures of my progress as I go. Until then, Happy Friday All!! Have a great weekend!