How I did it

For everyone who asked me "How are you doing it?".  I started with a great support system.  My best friends Wes and Sammi!  You can't ask for 2 better people to get you going.  At the time I started I was very depressed and unhappy.  I was seeing a therapist and a psychiatrist, which I still see.  My therapist had been working with me for about a year and on several occasions tried to get me to loose weight.  It wasn't until my friend Wes said that he was worried about me that it hit me.  I realized how unhappy I was.  I didn't like myself, not even a little.  I wanted to disappear into a hole and never come out again.  Luckily with the help of Wes, Sammi and my wonderful loving husband, Adam, I started clawing my way out of the hole I was in.  In therapy we discussed why I ate the way I did.  I just always thought it was because I hated vegetables and yogurt that I couldn't loose weight.  With my therapists help and Sammi's, I quickly learned that, that was not the case.  As with many people I was self medicating.  Stressed out, eat something, unhappy, eat more and so and so forth till I reached a whopping 307 pounds! I have to say that I was a guilty eater, meaning I felt guilty every time I ate.  It became a way for me to express the hate I felt for myself.  I would eat so much I would be bursting and then feel guilty that I ate that much.  I had to fix the way I viewed myself and the things I did.  I had to do the dreaded mantra's in the mirror everyday.  My therapist had me pick one thing I thought was pretty on me, something physical.  I choose my eyes.  Something that had nothing to do with weight.  I would look into the mirror and tell myself how pretty they are.  Instead of eating when I was upset I would go to the bathroom and tell myself that over and over until I believed it.   Soon I was picking other parts of my face, my mouth, my nose, my ears and so on.  With therapy and friends I came to realize that I am beautiful and worth it.
     I started small with the weight loss.  I started with walking on a treadmill for about 20-30 minutes a couple of days a week with Sammi and Wes.  After a few months of this I started weight watchers again.  This time I didn't go to the meetings, to be honest I didn't want to get out of bed on a Saturday morning and weight myself in front of people.  At first every Sunday I would tell Adam then text Sammi.  They were both so supportive.  Once and a while I would text Wes about my weight loss, but he was always more of my exercise guru.  After I lost about 50 pounds I decided that I needed to do a 5k!  Weight watchers was having there yearly 5k walk it challenge.  I knew I could walk 5k and not really break a sweat at this point, so jogging it was the challenge I needed.  I spent my work hours looking up how to run a 5k.  Printed out a 6 week program to get me running. I read everything I could on proper form.  Before I knew it I was jogging 20 minutes without walking.  I finished that 5k in 45 minutes.  That was huge for me.  I did it on my own without someone holding my hand.  Don't get me wrong I had my husband and friends there to cheer me on, but none of them ran it with me.  For the first time in years I did something social without a safety net.  Yes, they were there at the end of the race waiting for me, but I had to go 3.1 miles alone.  Just like my weight loss, it had to be me doing the work.  
     I'm not saying that you need to get a therapist or run a 5k to be successful in your weight loss journey, what I am saying is that YOU need to do the work.  You need to be prepared to look at yourself and figure it out.  While I can hold your hand in the beginning at some point you need to let go. This blog is for you to find what you need to get healthy.  So get out there!  Find your inner strength and beauty.  Find your Adam, Sammi and Wes and get moving!  Just remember that you didn't gain the weight or get out of shape over night, don't expect   to loose 30 pounds or run a marathon over night!