107 lbs lost!!! :)

Hey everyone,
I've been holding off on posting a success story for a while now... I think my brain still has to catch up to my body because sometimes I still have a hard time seeing myself as successful... But lately it has really been hitting me... I LOST 107 lbs! If that's not success, I don't know what is!

So, here's my story. (I know a lot of you like the stories... Those who just want to see pics, feel free to scroll

Well, I can't say that I've always been overweight... I wasn't. I was very thin and athletic in high school and in my early 20's. I played sports and was very active in general. I know that now, but back then, I thought I was fat. At 112 lbs I thought I was fat! I started working out even more and eating way less and developed an eating disorder. My weight slipped to about 92 lbs (I'm 5'3") and I still wasn't happy with my body. I live in a very very small town so people began to talk about the skinny little anorexic girl.... My boyfriend at the time threatened to break up with me if I didn't gain weight... Eventually I got tired of being the talk of the town and began to gain weight. That's when I developed a love for food! Bad food! I slowly gained weight and got so many compliments about looking so much better... My weight was healthy for a while until I met my last boyfriend...

That was the worst relationship ever... The first few years were good... Then he started spending a lot of time away from me. He was never home and when he was, he payed no attention to me at all... We were more like roommates. I began eating more and more, trying to fill that void... Before I knew it. I had reached 227lbs! Of course that just added to my emotional state... I decided to try a diet that one of my friends was successful with. It was a low carb, very low calorie diet... All pre -packaged foods... It wasn't very good but it was working! I did of course lose a lot of weight, eating so few calories. I lost about 70 lbs in about 4 months. I felt great! I was finally comfortable with myself although I was still overweight. Since I was "comfortable" I decided to start eating "normally" again. The very low calorie diet was too difficult to maintain long term... So what happened? I slowly started gaining weight again. My relationship with my boyfriend just kept getting worse and my self esteem just kept plummeting... Eventually, I slipped into a deep depression and was suicidal. My boyfriend dealt with it the way he dealt with everything. He ignored it hoping it would fix itself... After 7 years, he finally broke up with me.

I had nowhere to go but back to my parents house... My depression deepened for quite a while after that. I lost my boyfriend, my home, and now I was 31 yrs old and living with my parents and my two dogs. I planned to commit suicide in the summer of 2012. I had a date set and a plan to do it. When that day came, all I kept thinking about was my dogs Jake and Peanut. How could I leave them? They wouldn't understand, they would just feel abandoned. I couldn't do that to them so I held on a little longer... I was off work for about a year and spent pretty much all my time with my dogs. They made me feel better. Thanks to them I eventually started getting better...

In January 2013, I had been back to work for a few months and things were looking up. I decided that it was time to REALLY take care of myself. January 7th was the exact date that I first "weighed in". It was hard to take in... During the depression I had gained even more, I had given up. My weight had gone up to 232 lbs... It was hard to look at that number on the scale but I was determined... I immediately started working out and eating clean. I did some research and learned about nutrition. I wanted to do it the healthy way this time. I didn't want to put it all back on again. So then the weight started melting off... I kept eating clean and working out. I was running about 3-4 times a week and eventually started strength training too. The weight kept falling off but the best part was that I was doing it on my own, eating real food, and i wasn't starving! This was easy!! I never felt deprived because I was eating well and I did treat myself once in a while ... It has now been almost a year since I changed my lifestyle and I'm now the happiest I've ever been. Running and weight lifting have now become a way of life, and I still eat clean and really enjoy it! This is not a "diet" that has a finish line.. This is my lifestyle now and have no desire to go back to my bad habits...

Anyway, here are the pics... The before pics aren't at my highest weight (232lbs) but pretty close... (I avoided the camera back then so I couldn't find many pictures. The after pics were taken just last week at 125 lbs