Anyways, my story real quick: I have struggled with my weight, eating disorders and yo-yo dieting for most of my life. I remember I went on my first diet at age 8. Not normal. I'm an emotional eater, and I use food to cope with pain and the stress of life. I got up to 205 pounds in the 8th grade, and then developed an eating disorder in my teen years and got real skinny. Then as an adult, I stopped that and started gaining weight rapidly. That set in motion years of yo-yo dieting, where I would try to get healthy for a while, but would always give up and gain back all the weight I'd lost plus a whole lot more. The end result was that by the time I got to age 32, I was at my highest weight: 366 pounds. I couldn't believe it. I had high cholesterol, ridiculously elevated triglycerides, prediabetes, PCOS, and my knees and back hurt constantly. In short, I was a hot mess. I knew things had to change.
It was at this time that I started going to a church in the area I had just moved to 3 months prior. Now, basically at that point I was going to work, coming home, eating tons of junk food, and surfing the internet for 10 hours at a time. That was it. I had no social life. But when I started to go to church, I made friends and joined groups. One of them was called "Losing to Live", a weight loss program my Pastor created. You can google "Bod 4 God" and check it out for yourself, if you want. Anyways, through this program, I learned how to make small, simple changes, a little at a time. Like, stop buying the 3 bags of candy every night after work, first of all. Then stop drinking 6 cans of diet soda every day, and substitute water. It was small, incremental changes I could manage. Eventually I remade my entire diet to include more lean protein, tons of fruit and veggies, and less packaged foods and carbs.
I incorporated exercise slowly but surely. At first I could only do walking, but eventually I started participating in fitness classes offered at the church called "Body & Soul". You can google that too - I'm not sure about direct linking. It's an awesome program where we do cardio, strength training and dance moves for an hour, 3 to 4 times a week. Also, I participated in my church's annual 5k walk/run this year! I walked it, and my time was terrible, but I DID IT! Yay!
I know I still have a long, long way to go. I'm only half-way there. I'm still prediabetic, my good cholesterol is still too low and my bad cholesterol is still too high and I still struggle with PCOS. But I'm getting there. It's a journey.
Okay, now what you're all looking for: Progress pics!
Me at my birthday dinner, July 2011. I'm probably 20 pounds from my highest weight here.
Me (second from left), Thanksgiving 2011 at around 366 lbs
Me in December 2011, at around 350 lbs (I had broken several fingers, hence the cast).
Sideways December 2011 view.
Me, today in my old jeans.
Sideways today.
Front.
Sorry this was so long!!!
