It's Been A Long Hard Road, and I'm only partially there!

Normally I am not one to post anything on forums, but I’ve read a lot of support and encouragement from people on this site and I think deep down that is what keeps me going. So here is my story (sorry it’s a little long).

As early as I can remember I have always been on the chunky side. I look back at pictures of when I was a kid, and I am not joking when I say I looked like the Michelin tire man. I had rolls like no tomorrow. Fast forward to middle and high school. Like most overweight teens, I was constantly made fun of but I never let it get to me cause guess what? My friends didn’t care and that’s all that mattered to me. Fast forward again about 5/6 years ago. I finally started to go to the doctor on a regular basis because I have an extensive family medical history that includes several forms of cancer, heart problems, diabetes (just to name some). I complained about fatigue a lot so my doctor had me go through a sleep study where she established that I have sleep apnea. Along with that I was diagnosed with hypothyroidism and was prescribed medication for it. After constant visits I received the same remark: you need to lose weight.

It wasn’t until 2 years ago that I started to realize how much my weight has affected my life. So I love going to theme parks and riding pretty much every ride. So when my birthday rolled around 2 years ago my friends and I went to Universal Studios. Now I absolutely love Harry Potter, so I was beyond excited to finally be able to walk around the world of Harry Potter and ride Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey (the one inside the castle). I had been reading nothing but amazing things about it, and the pictures do no justice. So we got to the park as soon as it opened so we could get in line. After about a 2 hour wait, we made to a short distance from getting on the ride. That is when one of the ride attendants pulled my friends and I aside. They simple asked us if we had ever been on this ride. Naturally we said no. So they informed us that we needed to try the tester seat before we could go on. Just a side note on this, 3 other people in my group are also overweight. I tried with all my might to get that bar to click all the way in place and it would not. On top of this, this was occurring right in front of the rest of the people in line (talk about humiliating). Out of the group of 5 of us, only 2 of them could ride it. So while those 2 got on, we were taken through a secret door that led to the ride exit. So while 2 of my friends were on the ride, I was in the corner crying my eyes out. I had waited and longed to ride this ride for so long and here I was too fat to ride it. My whole life I have never been turned away from being able to ride a ride and here I was not being able to ride the one that meant the most to me.

After that day I decided I needed to change my life to a better and healthier one. I didn’t want to be another statistic in my family medical history and I wanted to eventually ride that Harry Potter ride. Then tragedy struck my life that I am still trying to deal with. My older sister passed away a couple days before Christmas 2012. My whole world seemed to shatter right in front of me. I tried to continue through my first year of teaching, which was hard enough already without this going on. Somehow I made it to the end of the summer but my life still felt like it was broken into millions of little pieces. How could I possibly lose this weight when my sister was my biggest supporter ever? One day I had a serious talk with myself. I knew that my sister would not want me to sit around and sulk over her. She knew that I was trying to lose weight and I knew that she would not want me to just sit around doing nothing. That is when my journey started to live my healthier life and here I am a year later 50 pounds lighter and still going!