My 2yr Journey on MFP ~ 40lbs and plenty of pics!

Today marks my 2nd anniversary (730 days if you are a days logged in kind of person like myself) on MFP. Tomorrow is my 30th birthday and I couldn't be happier. I started this journey because I simply wanted to drop some weight. I have always been confident in myself, at any size, and just wanted to challenge myself to see what I could do for my health and my body. I am not a fitness model, and I am not trying to be 15% body fat (but if you are, that's awesome and go get em tiger!). I just wanted to be healthy for myself. My father had his first heart attack at 36, when I was 3. My entire life was spent in and out of hospitals with him (he had 6 heart attacks altogether). He died from cardiovascular disease (final straw was cardio myopothy) when I was 22 years old. I didn't want that to be me.

I went on a vacation with my girlfriends in 2011, which we do every year, and looking at the pictures when I got home, I was not impressed. I was 245ish pounds:



So I decided to lose some weight. I stumbled upon MFP and got started. I have been an athlete my entire life. I am 5'11 and played basketball, volleyball, and softball all through school and dabbled a bit in college. So being in the gym and training was nothing new to me. So, I buckled down and started to drop the weight. It came off pretty easily, I will admit because I am uber focused when I set my mind to something and I bought a used treadmill, walked a lot, then started doing intervals, then I did the 30DS with Jillian and got hooked on her DVDs, then I decided I would do a 5K! This is me and my bestie on Mother's Day 2012 downtown Chicago:



I was doing Ripped in 30 and Running (I hate running, I am not one of those people who just loves it and wants to do it all the time). So I was running intervals mostly. I had lost roughly 40 pounds. Here is a pic of the Girls Weekend in 2012:



I had a pretty serious amount of stress in my life in the fall of last year, but I stayed as diligent as I could considering the circumstances and managed to maintain for the most part. I admit I gained back 10-15 pounds over the holidays. But come January of 2013, I was back with a vengeance! I changed my ticker to reflect the weight gain, and dropped all that like a bad habit (which is exactly what it was)!!

I went to see my bestie (who had moved to Honolulu, Hawaii - rough life, I know) in May of this year and was back to where I was prior to my craziness of 2012. Here I am on the Northshore & us at the trail head to the Maunawili Falls (which I am proud to say I jumped off of!):



Today I am so proud of what I have been able to accomplish and maintain through a really rough time. I still want to lose another 10-15 pounds, and I will. But it isn't about how fast I do it, it's the fact that I know that I will do it. You can do this, if you just keep trying. You will have ups and downs. You will eat things you think you "shouldn't" but its okay. Ask any of my friends on here, I eat Sour Patch Kids religiously! (like seriously, every week I eat a bag lol). I have weekends where I enjoy life and drink beer and eat BBQ and I live my life. Because at the end of the day, that's what I am doing this for, so that I CAN LIVE my life :O)

This one is the last one, and I will be done with this post. This was at a wedding last weekend of my best friend of over 20 years. I was so happy and proud to be a big part of her big day, but more importantly I am proud of myself. Tomorrow I turn 30, and I am excited about the next chapter in my life! So I say this to all of you: Be proud of yourselves and happy where you are right now, you just never know when it might be the end!~