The difference 40 pounds make

My weight has yo-yo'd a bit ever since I moved down south (8 years ago) and discovered fried food, biscuits and gravy, and sweet tea. My sisters always told me that eventually my teenage metabolism would slow down and I'd gain weight but I had to learn the hard way, of course. So I will start off by saying that at 16, I was 5'4" and 117-120 pounds. I moved to Tennessee and immediately started picking up weight. Lost a few lbs here, gained a few there, but at 21 in November of 2007, I was a whopping 173. To my knowledge, that was the heaviest I had ever been (AND WILL EVER BE!) and since then, I have been slowly working it off.

I had lost a good 20 lbs when I got sick in November of 2008, which caused me to lost another 15 or so. However, as part of my treatment (for Ulcerative Colitis, which I was diagnosed with in December 2008), I was on 60 mg of steroids a day, so I bulked right back up. Now, almost 2 years later, I am down almost 40 lbs (39 to be exact) from my highest weight. Here are the pictures to show you the difference:

Thanksgiving, 2007, 173 lbs (middle - you can see my sister laughing at my chubbiness! lol)


January 2009, on steroids with lots of water weight


More recently:
Halloween 2009


April 2010



And my favorite comparison:
April 2008, when I first started trying to lose weight and documenting my progress with pics

Two weeks ago, after giving myself shots for the illness mentioned above.