The journey of the 300+ pound woman...

I was a 300+ pound girl. It was a hard pill to swallow, not that I had a hard time swallowing all the food that got me there, but it was my nightmarish reality. However, I still couldn't see what I had become, because I was so used to feeling sluggish and depressed all the time. I seriously LIVED on fast food. I mean sometimes every meal was fast food, and ALWAYS super-sized with a shake or pint of ice cream for dessert. Sometimes I would crave food from different fast food places and I would drive from one to the next getting what I wanted. I would hide the bags in my backseat so the person at the window couldn't see that I already had food in the car because that would be embarrassing! I remember one day I had pizza buffet for lunch AND dinner. It was crazy!

I drank and smoked and could hardly walk up my flight of stairs to get to my apartment without almost dying, but somehow I always seemed to be able to go and get food and go drinking. Plus when I drank I smoked about a pack of cigarettes. My feet and knees ached so much from how heavy I was that they would pulsate from pain when I sat down. I was so swollen that if I touched my feet it would leave an indention.

Not that the physical pain wasn’t bad enough…my self-esteem was non-existent and it totally showed on my body, my face and in my eyes. I was super sad and I hated the way that I felt, but I couldn’t snap myself out of it. I tried diet after diet after diet…with small successes (happy) and HUGE failures (depression) followed with a weight gain of more than what I started at. This only added to my depression, but I ate to make it all go away. Until the day that I reached my point…or so I thought.

I started working out with a personal trainer and had success…I actually lost about 44 pounds and even made it all the way up to 61 pounds. Only to be side tracked by my emotions again and gain back most of the weight that I had lost. And here we go again!!!

I had finally “accepted” my fate…that I would be overweight for the rest of my life but still waiting for that “miracle” diet or pill to come along and save my sad *kitten*…but it never came…and I kept sinking deeper and deeper…

Then one day I had had enough! And I decided that I was going to figure out what in the hell was really going on and get this taken care of. I mean the peeps on The Biggest Loser had lost all of this weight and why couldn’t I? Well, I didn’t have Jillian or Bob, but I set out to make a change…and by change I mean a lifestyle change.

I slowly started changing my eating habits and if I wanted to eat something “bad” I would try and figure out why I wanted it. It took a lot of me searching inside myself and I started to discover that I had the desire to make the lasting lifestyle changes, so in August 2009 I quit drinking and smoking and started eating healthier. Yes, I still had cheat meals and splurged more than I should have, but now about 90% of my meals were healthy and well balanced. By default I stopped eating fast food and probably haven’t had fast food in about the same time. My fast food is now Subway…not a meatball sub! Then I started working out…walking, doing some workout videos and some gym work. Then I moved up to spin classes Thanksgiving weekend and was addicted to those classes for a while. I started to drop pounds really fast. Then I worked my way up to boot camp workouts…and here I am today doing things that I NEVER thought I would be doing and kicking *kitten* at it too!!!

I’m here to say that this CAN be done. I didn’t need a fancy diet or celebrity trainer to get me here. All I needed was to discover that I was WORTH it!!! And that small glimmer of hope has transformed into where I am today. 99 pounds lighter…smaller clothes AND shoes, even my feet got smaller…and from someone that could barely walk 1 mile in 20 minutes…to someone who ran 1 mile this morning in 10:52. I’m still on my journey…and I will get to where I want to be. I feel so much better and I’m so much happier. Yes, things get me down, but I do try and figure out what it is…I thank GOD that I’m finally here…