Owning My Story

I am sure I have talked on here before about when I realized just how overweight I was and how I still did nothing about it but I am going to share that story with you again because it is time for me to really own the start of my weight loss story.

I have been overweight pretty much my whole life. I remember the first time I had to buy a size 12 pair of jeans and how mortified I was at how much bigger I was than my friends. I spent many years doing one fad diet after another and each one would pass just as quickly as it came. I lost a bit of weight before my wedding in 2006 and really felt good about myself and my body for the first time in a long time, even though I was still overweight. After our wedding the weight came on fast. We were trying to have kids and after losses and failures and infertility treatments and surgeries I was the heaviest in my life in the summer of 2010 at over 260 pounds. In late 2010 we decided to pursue adoption and as we were going through the approval process our agency asked us to do a video for them about the home study process. We excitedly agreed and anxiously awaited that video to be edited and sent back to us. When it arrived I honestly did not recognize the woman on the video. I had NO idea I was THAT big. I remembered thinking the morning of the video that I looked pretty good, I was wearing an outfit I felt confident in and when I saw that video I cried. I never showed the video to anyone because of how embarrassed I was but what I saw. I knew I needed to make a change and worried that we would never be chosen as parents because of my weight.

Here is that video. Please be kind...this is not an easy thing to share and honestly I am sick right now just typing this knowing it is going online for all to see.

http://youtu.be/hdxIMHmYqKs (for some reason it won't let me put the video in)

In September 2011 we were blessed with our son through the miracle of adoption and thoughts of weight loss went to the back of my brain as I focused on this new precious life I had been entrusted with. His first birthday came around the next year and I was still huge and embarrassed to be in pictures with him. After that I started eating less (but not healthy) and lost a bit of weight. In late February 2013 I realized I was going to have to exercise if I had any hope of being the Mother my son deserved and losing all that weight. So, I started out doing C25K on my elliptical. I lost a little more but my eating was still way off, too often I would do my 30 minutes on the elliptical and then eat half a pizza for dinner because I was "too tired to cook". Eventually I knew C25K wasn't going to be enough for me so I started doing Zumba on our Kinect. I lost a little more with that and consistently tracked my (unhealthy) food and kept at my calorie goal day in and day out. I had a little more success.

Then in June 2013 I met a woman that introduced me to Les Mills Combat and the idea of clean eating. I did my research and at the end of the month bought Les Mills Combat and started doing it right away. In mid July my husband and I took our kids on a trip to Disneyland and when we came back it was on! We started eating clean and working out to Les Mills Combat by their calendar on July 22nd and never looked back. In those first 60 days we lost over 20 pounds each. About half way through those 60 days we also started drinking Shakeology and watched our fitness level kick it up an extra notch. At the end of Combat we decided to give Insanity a try. It pushed us to and past every limit we thought we had but we successfully completed those 9 weeks as well and had even more weight loss to show for it. Now we are on to P90X3 and seeing even greater results!

Beachbody, hard work, dedication, and support has been the combination that has changed my life and the lives of my family! It is my goal and pleasure to share it with all of those around me. I want more than anything to help everyone meet their goals, I never thought I would be under 180 pound and yet here I am and working toward 150! If I can do it, anyone can!