My Journey so far….

My journey so far…..

This was first intended to be a chronicle of my weight loss journey, however along the way I realized this has been a life changing event in more than just pounds lost. It is amazing to be able to look back on life and learn from what I have done, or not done and what I thought the reasons were and what I have come to realize are the true reasons for things.  I realize that may be a bit confusing so I will go back and explain.

All of my life I had been small. I can remember being upset I couldn’t give blood in high school during the blood drive because I didn’t weigh enough!!! Now realistically it wasn’t my giving nature that was upset but the jealousy that others got out of class to give! Up until I was pregnant with my first child I weighed around 100 pounds. My first doctor’s appointment was when I was 3 months along already (had to get married and be less than 3 months pregnant to be covered by insurance, should have been my first clue when that is how I planned my first wedding) I weighed in at a whopping 104 lbs. And that was the last time I ever saw that number on a scale again. I delivered my beautiful daughter at 168 lbs.!!! Holy cow quite literally!!! I left the hospital weighing the same even after an 8 lb. baby! I did eventually lose some weight and was down to the 130’s by the time I was pregnant with my second child and delivered my adorable son weighing about the same as the first time. This began my struggle that would take me up to 2011, when I started to change my life and decided to get tips from websites like lizzardco.com.

My first life changing event took place in 2000 when I lost my grandmother. She was one of the most important people in my life. She had a strength that amazed me beyond belief. She was my rock. I still miss her every day and am most sadden that she is not here in person for me to share the happiest time in my life. I say in person because I feel her with me every minute of every day. I do not want to take away anything from my mother because she too is an amazing woman. She showed me that even if you make a wrong choice you can still change it and be happy. You can go from feeling like a nothing to being someone’s everything. I do not think to this day she knows how amazing she is.

Next Life changing event….Divorce..wow now that was life changing!! When my children were with their dad I was alone!!! What in the world was this?? I had GONE from my mom’s house to my husband’s house never having lived ever on my own. It was one of the scariest times in my life. It took a ton of time and some great people but I found my peace again, I found me. Trust me it was a long hard process but worth every minute! I actually should apologize to a long list of people because during this time I wasn’t always a good mother, daughter, sister, friend, family member or person in general. But for once it was about me not anyone else and it made me become better at all of those. Dawn, Deanna and Charlie were probably the best rocks a girl could have had during this time! I do not even see them much now but still count all three as the dearest friends a girl could ask for. And three people I would still do anything for.

Next up, the love of my life….. I will never know what I did to deserve this man in my life. He is amazing, he is the most honest and loving man I have ever met. He is an incredible father, husband, step dad, son, friend and partner. I count myself lucky every morning that I wake up next to him. He started out as my best friend and will ALWAYS be my best friend. We combined our families and other than a few hiccups we blended well. Today to see the four kids together makes me unbelievably happy. WE gave that to them, we gave them another parent to love them and another parent they could count on, we gave them siblings they will have forever. They are close and I couldn’t ask for more. So here I was happily married, the mom to another two kids and just going along life like everyone else. I won’t say we didn’t have our issues just like any other family but I really think we all were happy and glad to have each other in our lives, what more could you ask for??

Just as we had our ups this down was a big one, May 5^th 2007 we lost a man dear to all of us. We lost my father in law in a tragic accident. We were devastated. The single hardest thing I have ever had to do was tell my dear husband his dad was gone. The next few months were a blur. Arrangements, visitation, funeral, dealing with the horses, house etc. I knew my role was to take care of my husband and help in any way I could. With my nature being to take care of everyone else I tend to take longer to deal with grief. Having held in my grief quite a bit then having another tragedy strike with my childhood best friend committing suicide and then being sued by my ex-husband I lost it. There is no other way to put it. I was horrible. I was mean. I was irresponsible. I was depressed, I started having anxiety attacks and doing things that were just not me. There were very few people who truly knew how I was being, how bad my depression had gotten. I knew I had to do something to change it or I was going to lose everything that was important to me. I have to say one thing, my husband is the most understanding, loving, caring man I could ever ask for but everyone has their limit and I started to realize his may not be far off if I didn’t change my ways and quick. I went to see my doctor and after sitting in his office for 45 minutes crying my eyes out and taking a depression evaluation he prescribed me some meds. to help with the depression. I want to say he is my gynecologist but he helped me in every aspect of my life and I will always be grateful for him. He is a great doctor all around not just the obvious women parts.  It was a battle back and somewhat slow at times but I made it…I have a long list of people to thank for this, first of all, my husband for having the patience of a saint and my kids and family for still loving me, even when I was crazy. And it may surprise some but Summer for covering for me at work. She helped more than she will ever know, no questions asked just did whatever I needed done and kept my secret and really deserves credit in saving my career and I don’t think I have ever thanked her for that.  But the biggest had to be Lindsay. She was my friend, my therapist and butt kicker when I deserved it. I wouldn’t have made it without all of these people most of all her. She saved me and I will treasure my friendship with her forever.

So some of you may be wondering what all of this has to do with weight loss??? Well it has to do with lifestyle changing!!! I wasn’t happy with a lot of what was going on with me but I knew better than to change it all at once. So I made a plan. In 2011 I joined weight watchers with my mother with the plan to lose about 30 lbs. so I could quit smoking. I knew my depression tendencies wouldn’t be able to handle quitting and gaining more weight so I had to lose before I quit. I shamefully started weight watchers at 180.6 lbs. I had even lost about 5 lbs. before that. This was more than I weighed when I delivered my children!!! And I was a smoker! And 40!! So I had my goal, get under 150 and stop the smoking and hope to not gain too much of it back! When I quit smoking on Feb. 18^th 2013 I weighed about 153. I had changed the way I ate, I exercised more. I continued my better habits but knew I would see a weight gain from the not smoking. I had prepared myself for this. In the meantime I decided there was some other things I wanted to change. Some of these may seem silly to most people but they were things I wanted and I decided I was going to do them. I wanted to take better care of my skin, I had always been lucky as far as acne goes but I had never done anything preventative. I started using products for this and still do to this day. I also wanted to make sure I hydrated my skin as I like being in the sun and suffered so much with dry skin in the winter. I use lotion every day without fail now.  Lastly, if I was going to be a nonsmoker I wanted whiter teeth! I now have a routine for that too! These may seem trivial but they were all apart of my new lifestyle. They were a list of things I always thought about changing but was just too darn lazy to do the work.

Now back to the weight loss! January of 2014 my husband and I both decided we needed to make some changes. I had only gained about 15 lbs. or so back from not smoking thanks to walking and jogging regularly. I still wasn’t where I wanted to be. We decided to purchase an exercise program called T25 and we also used an app called my fitness pal to track food daily. The exercise program was set up for a 10 week routine. I also went to see my doctor so he could help me do this in a healthy manner. I told him what I was doing and how incredibly slow the weight loss was. He took some blood and ran some tests. He also gave me some suggestions on eating properly etc. After the test results came back and everything seem to be alright he decided to prescribe me a diet pill. He had me come see him monthly to track my progress. I didn’t tell many people about this because I didn’t want them to think I was taking the easy way out or that it was some magic pill that just melted the weight off. I had made major changes and was doing the hard work to make this happen!!! Trust me when I say when it came to ending the prescription I was scared that it would all come back. My doctor reassured me it was my hard work and changes not the pill.

In February I ran in my first 5k race. My goal was to finish and I jokingly said not to finish last. Ironically I was close to last but stayed back with a girl who was struggling as much as I was and I would have stayed with her until the finish but she had a friend loop back and run with her. As much as I joked about it I didn’t want to see anyone finish last alone. I ran this race in lightning speed of 40 MINS! I ran my second 5k race in July and shaved 5 mins. off of my time. I was so overwhelmed by my accomplishment I had tears. I had talked my sons girlfriend into running with me and her being 20 years younger finished way before I did and she wanted to talk to me right after and I had to walk away to get my emotions under control. Since I was sucking in breath heavily she was none the wiser to my tears.

Fast forward to now and I proudly weigh in at 135 lbs.!!!! I went from a size 12 creeping closer to 14 to now firmly in a size 6! My wonderful husband has dropped 30 lbs. and we are both in better shape than we have been in years. I never ever could have done this without his undying support. He is my world, my everything.

I can honestly say without a doubt I am happier now than I have ever been. I have been smoke free for 19 months, I am at my ideal weight and I FEEL wonderful. As a bonus my husband is HOT. LOL He always has been but now…damn…

This is definitely a long story and less to do about weight loss but more about changing a lifestyle. It shows that no matter what you have gone through, no matter what you are going through that you have the power to change your life. No matter what it is that you want all you have to do is set that goal, fight that fight and you can achieve anything.

For those of you who made it through to the end of this story I thank you for your time and if just one person takes something from this it was worth it.

For those of you who were mentioned in this story and those I may have missed thank you for your role in my journey I will be forever grateful.

I will soon post more details of the weight loss and changing my lifestyle. I will also write more about my career ups and downs. This was just the first story I wanted to tell.

Until then,

Live, Laugh, Love