Hello! My name is Ruby. I’m a 23 year old university student, about to enter my last year (yay!), and trying to lose the weight I’ve gained throughout the last 5 years I’ve been in university.

In high school, I was at a pretty comfortable weight about 125-130 lbs at 5′2″. According to what I’ve read about the body frame test of circling your index finger and thumb around your wrist, I would be under the large category, so I guess I’m genuinely big-boned to begin with. Though I’ve always wanted to be really petite and thin (especially with my height), I’ve accepted it’s not meant to be. I’d just like to be at a normal BMI and toned up.

I don’t have any pictures from high school on my computer, but I do have pictures from first year university and onwards.

This picture was taken the summer after first year. I think I weighed around 140 lbs, which is about a 10 lb gain over the year while living in the dorms.

In my second year, I gained a LOT of weight. I kind of went into a depression. I was very unhappy with my program (I was studying life sciences at the time), hated living in the dorms and was so unhappy with my weight that I became anti-social and would binge eat.

This is from the summer after 2nd year at approximately 150 lbs. up another 10 lbs. I decided around this time to switch programs and schools. I switched into business and had to start from scratch, but I was much happier in business than I was in science. I also moved home to commute to my new school. I think because I was enjoying my classes, I was studying more and there was a lot of late night snacking that year.

Finally, in January 2007, I went to a friend’s birthday and this picture really opened my eyes to how much weight I’d been gaining steadily. I was probably around 160 lbs. there, my highest weight. I couldn’t believe how huge and puffy I looked. The sad thing is, I didn’t realize I looked that huge. Once I saw that picture, I began exercising and eating a bit better. By the summer, I’d lost about 10 lbs.

This was taken in August 2007 at 150 lbs, again, LOL. I’d been exercising a bit more, so I’d begun to tone up a little. In September, I started working out a lot and I decided to try a low carb, low fat diet to lose weight more quickly. I saw results pretty quickly from both the diet and exercise. I was able to stay strict for about a month and lost about 12 lbs that I was able to maintain for a little while (thanks mostly to working out 5 days a week).

This was taken in January 2008 at about 140 lbs. After this, I wasn’t able to stay strict with the diet. I kept to my exercise plan and ate relatively healthy, but once I started eating carbs again (bread and sugar carbs), the weight came back on.

By February 2009, I was back to being 150 lbs.

This was taken May 2009. I basically stopped any dieting during the winter, but I was eating sort of healthy and I was exercising, though not as much as the previous year. The scale hadn’t budged for several months and I was getting fed up, but I couldn’t find the motivation to get my weight loss efforts back in gear. Luckily, I found 3 Fat Chicks in June and it was exactly the motivation I needed start back up again.

I decided to try calorie counting and exercise this time around instead of doing some crazy diet. And of course, I started this blog to keep track of my progress and hold me accountable. I didn’t want to post my pictures, but I figured once I saw it all up there, it would be real!

So that’s my story! I’m still trying to work through some of my issues with food and body image. I think that’s a struggle for most women and especially those who are trying to lose weight, so we’ll see how it goes.