Before and Afters - Focusing on NSV to succeed!

All too often on the journey to a healthier body, our mind gets a little confused and we focus far too much on the scale than the results in our bodies.

I started my weight loss journey in August of 2011. I had reached my highest weight ever by simply neglecting any bit of a healthy lifestyle I once had... eating out all the time, cooking unhealthy food for myself and not exercising. I hit 185 pounds at 5'5" and the day I finally willed myself to step on a scale and discover this was the day I decided I needed to get healthy! My friend had recently begun to shed a few lbs and she told me she had been logging her food and exercise on myfitnesspal. I had actually used mfp in the past, but never like I have this go around. This time, I've made mfp friends and their support has been instrumental in my success. We all have days we feel like we want to quit and seeing that you aren't the only one makes it a lot easier to ignore those feelings of wanting to give up. This isn't a diet! This is a lifestyle change. If I treat it like a diet like every weight loss attempt in the past, I will be right back up to 185 before I know it.

Thank you to everyone who has helped me get to this point! All of my fitness pals are awesome! A few particular stand outs in my friends list are Myscheer, ElisaRazz, Breezad and Katcottrill. These girls have become real friends to me, even though I've only met one of you in person, we have begun following each other on different platforms such as Pinterest, Facebook, and Instagram and the support has truly followed me outside of myfitnesspal. You girls have no idea how much your constant compliments and encouragement means to me! Every time I want to give up, I think of Elisa at her early morning boot camps, the AMAZING weight loss of both Michelle and Katrina, and Bree killing it with hotness at her pole dancing classes! You girls are awesome and you should know it!!!!

Anyways... another point of this post besides bragging about my awesome mfp friends is to talk about my success. I have lost about 35 lbs, hovering around 150 at this point. The thing is - I lost almost all of this before Christmas... for the last 6 months, I have been struggling to lose anything. I've gotten depressed about it and angry about it and all the thoughts you can think when you are working so hard and not seeing results on the damn scale. Then I took some advice, saw that I wasn't the only one and realized the scale is JUST a number. A number does not define me. I still have my goals listed in numbers because I have an idea of what I will look like at these weights, but it's so important to remind myself of what I have achieved. With that said... before and afters. This fatter girl were pics taken probably after losing about 5 lbs and realizing I should take some before shots! The girl with the perkier butt, slimmer arms and a shrinking belly is me 2 days ago!








Good luck to everyone on the journey to a better you!