My Story....

Chesticles

Hello Everyone

My name is Jessica, I am 26 years old and I recently shocked to discover that I am almost 300lbs.

I know what you're thinking: how can you only just discover this??

It's simple - I have ignored this issue, brushed it under the rug, pretended it didn't matter for most of my life.

To me, my weight has always been a "cause" to fight for. I have always been a terribly confident woman, never thought of myself as ugly, never had any problems building and sustaining relationships with men. While I was convinced of how okay I was with myself, I found myself fighting to convince those around me - my mother especially. I am a serious advocate of accepting TRUE BEAUTY no matter age, race, size, shape, creed or colour. I often found myself standing on a metaphorical soap box, preaching to whoever would listen about accepting and loving yourself for who you are. I truly believe in this!

But I spent so much time fighting for this, that I began using my own weight as a symbol. Suddenly I realized, that it had control over me and not the other way around. I had used this fight to blind myself to the tremendously unhealthy life I was living. In fact, I was almost living this unhealthy life to prove a point!

If you think this sounds incredibly stupid, just imagine how I've felt about myself when I came to this conclusion. Luckily I have an incredible boyfriend who loves and supports me - he used to be about 300lbs also and has since lost 80lbs and gained about 30-40lbs of muscle. If there is anyone who could help me - it's him. He was just the beginning inspiration on my path to live my life.

Let me tell you that I've tried EVERYTHING. Every diet on the planet - I have a hypoactive thyroid, so most of the time my weight just fluctuated even when I was trying. A couple years ago I stopped eating all carbs and dairy at the suggestion of my doctor. I lost 50lbs and felt AMAZING - but it didn't last long... as soon as I started re-introducing bread I blew up like a balloon. Let me tell you that this is no way to live. I have always been a savoury kind of person, never really liking or craving sweets. I'll never forget the first time I ate a grape on that no-carb diet after MONTHS of no sweets. I felt like I was in Nirvana.

I realized that depriving myself wasn't going to work. I'm too stubborn. I'll cheat - on Weight Watchers I used to write down my meals and then eat some unwritten snacks like if they weren't on the paper, they didn't exist. And forget exercise - Lazy is my middle name.

When the New Year started, I was ready to make my pledge. I'd seen my boyfriend do it and now it was my turn. I just didn't know how to start or what to do. Then my boyfriend reminded me of something SO simple. Losing weight is simply burning more calories than you consume. WOW. The simplest, most basic understanding of how this works and I had spent YEARS complicating it. I started paying attention to the caloric value of everything, realizing that I can eat the things I like. This was all well and good, but my final moment of inspiration did not come until I found Marlena.

I am a huge fan of makeupgeek.com - I LOVE makeup and am obsessed with the talent and skill of Makeup Geek's creator, Marlena. She is one of the most beautiful women I've ever seen and she's now officially lost 90lbs and is keeping it off. She has documented her entire process and I have been wowed by her achievements. I see so much of myself in her. Please visit her site and just witness her unbelievable transformation. From that point I started doing research and found MyFitnessPal which has so far changed my life.

I was so excited to see that you can input your daily exercise. When I saw how many calories one can burn just from simply swimming, I HAD to get in the water. Now I swim 3 times a week for 40 minutes - half of which is spent on serious laps and the other just leisurely having fun. I'm hoping to work my way up to the gym for other types of cardio - but this feels like a really good start. On January 3rd I weighed 290lbs. I cleansed for 2 months - no carbs or dairy and got myself down to 280. I reintroduced complex carbs, enjoying fruit and even cheese. This is when I started Myfitness pal and have since lost 6 more pounds.

I've read through these message boards and feel like I see myself reflected in the voices of so many of you. I realize now that I am not one woman fighting to prove she's beautiful to those around her - but that I am one of thousands of voices, joined together, KNOWING we are beautiful and FIGHTING to live a FULL LIFE.

I look forward to offering my humblest support to the many people fighting along side of me and receiving the motivation I need to be the big, beautiful, HEALTHY woman I know I am

Thanks so much for reading and for inspiring me to really do this!

-Jessica

kaits108

Thank you for sharing your story! You're such a great writer! I totally see what you're saying and I'm so glad you joined MFP! You will do awesome on your journey and you seriously need to write more, you've got a really amazing talent Good luck!!

SaraTonin

Go you!!! I'm glad you've found MyFitnessPal. It is really eye-opening when we find out that the foods we eat every day have more or less calories than we expect. It's a learning experience!

I also wanted to tell you that you're a great writer.

perrytyra

Welcome to the board. You are beautiful. And now you can work towards being beautiful, and fit.

nerdyandilikeit

i love your honesty and i would love to encourage each other if you'd like to add me