Quit Smoking, Gained Weight

As the title of this thread states, I quit smoking four months ago, which is great. My lungs feel fabulous. I gained seventeen pounds, which is not so great. My belly feels awful (which is where all the weight seems to be going). Laying on my side to sleep is uncomfortable. I have to put a pillow under there to keep it up. Not cool. Not for me, at any rate. Not to mention I now only have two pairs of pants that fit me, a lot of my shirts don't sit right, and a bunch of those body conscious, form fitting dresses I own are stretched out to the max and don't look so awesome on me at the moment.

I'm 5'3", so a seventeen pound weight gain is pretty significant. So, back to what I was doing a year ago when preparing for my wedding: Jillian Michael's 30 Day Shred. I lost 25 lbs last year doing that, which is also why it bothers me that I gained the majority of that weight back. I worked hard for that!

So, now I want to lose that 17 pounds, and maintain, which means I need to be active for the rest of my life. I'm in my early thirties, and it's only going to be harder to maintain from here on in, I understand. I've thought long and hard on this, and I have the same mentality and will power about daily exercise that I had when I made the decision to stop smoking, cold turkey, I might add, after sixteen years of it. I don't really know how to explain it. I think you have to have made that kind of decision about something in your life in order to really understand how it mentally feels when you make that kind of decision. It's like something just fits into place and there's no way you're going to let anything get in your way. You've made the decision and you're going to stick to it.

I'm in this for the long haul. I wouldn't mind some support and encouragement, because let me tell you, 5:30am is really early and my body and mind doesn't like it, but I know that, for me, first thing in the morning is the best time to work out. It gets me up and going. If I wait to do it after I work, I'll end up with a string of excuses. I'll provide support back. I'll be logging onto here daily.