Was that really me?

Body image is such a strange thing...I've never seen myself as slender, but I also didn't see myself as fat when I got there. I was always just "overweight" in my own head. That's probably why I wasn't terribly motivated to lose for such a long time (was heavy throughout my thirties).

After my second child was born and I dropped the baby weight, I was at 176 lbs. I had been eating healthy food during my pregnancy, just too much of it, and we also ate fast food on a regular basis. I hadn't exercised since my twenties. Even so, I dropped 12 lbs in the course of trying to eat a little better and breastfeeding. What really started my journey was when my husband and I applied for life insurance in May of 2012. My numbers were actually quite good, but his cholesterol and triglycerides were very high. He's never cared for veggies or fruit much, and like me, he was eating fast food and not exercising.

His test results really put a scare into him, and he was the one to find the MFP site and start using it. I really wasn't interested at first, thinking all I really needed to do was cut down on the fast food and start exercising. However, after watching him use it for a week, it really opened my eyes to the number of calories we were consuming, and I joined the site as well. I was 164 lbs at that time. I also finally put those exercise DVDs I'd bought months ago to use. I found that the one I liked and worked best for me was Leslie Sansone's Walk at Home.

From June to December, I really concentrated on eating only healthy, low cal foods at or a little below the MFP calorie limit. I also exercised 5-6 days per week, doing at least two miles of power walking/jogging and cardio. I didn't know how I'd find the time to exercise, but that old saying of you have to "make" the time really does hold true. In that time, my husband lost 50 lbs (via nutrition alone - he didn't really get into exercising), and I lost 47 lbs and got into the best shape of my life!

Now, I'm in maintenance, but I'm still logging (want to focus even more on my nutrition and also to determine as closely as possible the right daily calories) and I'm still focused on working out in order to continue to tone. Body image is still an odd thing. I really have to look at my pictures from time to time to remind myself that I've lost the weight, but I think I believe it now more than I did back in my teens/twenties when it was really skewed (I went through a bit of anorexia in my late teens). I feel so much healthier, as does my husband, and we feel like we're doing our best to ensure we'll be here for our children. I also hope that our (now) good diet and exercise habits will encourage our children in that direction throughout their lives as well.