From 300 lbs to running a 5k......

Thanks so much everyone! My daughter was SO proud of me (although she promptly told me that I was stinky after giving me a big hug LOL), being the mom of 5 this has been so important to me b/c I want my kids to have a good role model and to live happy, healthy, active lives.

As it says in my profile, I did have the VSG and it has been an amazing tool to help me in my weight loss, but I had to do my fair share of the work too. I had to changed my entire view of food, now I look at it as fuel and plan my meals and daily intake around what my body NEEDS for that day instead of what it wants (which is fats, sweets and carbs!). I have worked hard at not using food as motivation and reward (I had to get away from the "I deserve this" mentality, ie: I ran 3.1 miles, I DESERVE this ice cream as a treat), and emotional/comfort eating.

My advice to anyone just starting out is to pick something that will work for you and STICK to it, so many times I started exercise programs/diets and quit b/c it got "hard", this time I set myself a series of small goals and completed them, I would not accept ANY excuses from myself. Slowly I came to understand that the only thing standing in my way was ME and that 90% of the problem was my own mental blocks that I had set for myself (the negative self talk was the worst!). Every time I heard myself saying "I can't" I changed in my head to "I won't" and that made me mad enough at myself to turn it all into "I can and will" and then "I did!".