Continuing the long journey!

I started my weight loss journey in March of 2008. I was 23 years old and weighed 344.6 lbs. I went to the doctor for a physical and found out I had high blood pressure. I always knew that being obese would cause health complications but always just tried to pretend like it would never happen to me.

I decided to try Jenny Craig, because I hate cooking and I hate shopping for groceries. Between March and October I lost 100 lbs. I felt fantastic! Every where I went people always asked me about how much weight I had lost. Every day atleast one person would ask me how much weight I had lost, tell me how great I was doing, and say how proud they were of me. Everyone surrounding me was so supportive. I loved all of this to a certain point but gradually it became over whelming. The pressure of everyone knowing that I was dieting, the pressure that I felt to impress everyone, the pressure to make everyone proud month after month finally got to me. I finally cracked!

After months of working out 4-5 times a week, walking my dogs every day for atleast 30 minutes, following the Jenny Craig food plan I stopped all of it. Well not all of it..... I still ate all the Jenny Craig food, plus fast food, and all kinds of junk food. From November to the end of December I gained 15lbs. Every day I would beat myself up over what I had done wrong the day before. Then I would eat fatty foods because I would be so upset with myself. I felt horrible!

After the first of the year I had to go back to re-evaluate why I had started this journey in the first place. I wanted to live a long, healthy, happy, fit, active life! I am doing this for me, to he healthy! Not to look good in a bikini, or to make my friends and family proud of me. When I think about the lifestyle change I have made it makes me happy with myself, and that gives me the strength to make the right decisions day after day.

For anyone who is interested in the program I use.... For food I still continue on the Jenny Craig plan, although I do go out a few times a week which does make things difficult. For exercise I workout with a friend who bought the book "Winning by Losing: Drop the Weight, Change Your Life" by Jillian Michaels from The Biggest Loser. The book has a 12 week workout program and shows your exactly what to do, how to do it, and when to do it. Before starting this workout program which I just started a week ago, I would just stick to cardio rotating from the elliptical to the treadmill.