My weight-loss journey started in March of 2010…..Actually, scratch that. My weight-loss journey really started in Jan of 2008. 2008 was the year I was going to turn 30, so for my New Year’s Resolution I declared that I would lose50 poundsbefore I turned 30. I had much more than that to lose but that was my first goal. So I joined a gym for the first time, along with all the other ‘Resolutionists’.

My first day in the gym came to about 20 minutes walking on the treadmill at a pretty low speed. That was all I could handle, weighing around300 pounds. I wasn’t very dedicated to it though and I only went to the gym about 2 or 3 times a week, maybe. I was kind of watching what I was eating but not really. So the weight wasn’t coming off nearly as quickly as I thought it should be. Especially after watching Biggest Loser and seeing the contestants lose 5, 6, 8,10 poundsa week. How come I couldn’t do that?

I’m not sure when it started exactly or how I came to choose to do it, but a few months into my ‘Resolution’ I became bulimic. It started small; when I would really overeat and feel guilty I would make a trip to the bathroom. Then, it turned into a few times a week. When I saw that I was finally losing weight it became an almost daily thing. No matter how little I ate, I felt like I needed to throw up. It became an addiction and at one point I was doing it 2 or 3 times a day. I knew it was wrong in the back of my head and knew I needed to stop but just couldn’t make myself stop. People were complimenting me on how good I was doing and how good I was looking and I loved it! So how could I stop now?

It was getting closer to December (which is when my birthday is if you don’t know) so 30 was approaching quickly! I was on track to lose the50 poundsI had set out to lose. I was still throwing up daily and not one person had a clue. I had everyone believing that I was losing weight just by going to the gym and watching what I was eating. I had told myself that I would stop after I hit my goal; it wasn’t that much further away.

My birthday came around, and guess what….I had only lost45 pounds. Now some people said that was still great and it was only5 poundsaway and that I should be proud of myself for losing any weight at all. But I was so disappointed with myself and thought I was a failure. Of course I didn’t ‘remember’ that I had not really worked very hard at it. I didn’t really spend much time in the gym or watching what I was eating. The weight I had lost was really just because of the bulimia. But I was still angry with myself and gave up on myself. I started eating even more and stopped going to the gym all together. It didn’t take long at all for the weight to start going back on. As most of you know, it’s a heck of a lot easier to put the weight on than it is to take it off.

It didn’t take long for one of my friends to notice that I had given up and she asked me at lunch one day what was going on. I broke down and told her everything. Of course she was shocked to find out about the bulimia and she talked me into seeing a counselor about it. So I spent 2009 focusing on stopping the bulimia. I gained all of the45 poundsback plus some and was well over300 poundsby 2010.

Back to March of 2010 now; I had overcome my bulimia and had gone over 6 months without throwing up. But I had put on so much weight that I was miserable. I had a new job though and was working 10-15 hours a day and didn’t have much time or energy for the gym. That was my excuse anyway. Excuses are so much easier to make than overcome.

Then one day I realized none of my jeans fit anymore and I was wearing my ‘running’ pants all the time. Of course there was no running being done in them, I hated running. When the day came that even my ‘running’ pants were too small I knew it was time. I couldn’t live like that anymore, something needed to change.

At the end of March my schedule got a lot better at work and I had more time to go to the gym. So I went to the gym and again I started walking on the treadmill. 20 minutes was about all I could handle at first. I weighed311 poundsand was more out of shape than at any time in my life. I tried to walk a little longer and a little faster each week until I was up to 60 minutes at a decent walking speed. I had also started working out on some of the weight machines for something different. At first I enjoyed it and was even contemplating going from walking to running. I kept praying that God would give me the discipline and determination to do it and do it right this time.

By the end of May I had lost about23 poundsand was feeling better but I was getting bored. I was finding it harder and harder to talk myself into going to the gym. The treadmill and weight machines just weren’t cutting it anymore, but I didn’t know what else to do. I was also starting to feel a little discouraged. I still had over100 poundsto go! I kept wondering how in the world I could lose 100 more pounds. It seemed like such a daunting number, almost unattainable. It seemed easier to just quit and stay where I was instead of trying to lose such a huge amount of weight. So I started praying that God would give me the desire to keep on going. I called it the triple D, I prayed every night for the discipline, determination and now the desire to keep on going and not quit this time. I knew I needed to focus on just losing one pound at a time and stop focusing on the big number of100 pounds.

Then one of my friends asked me to go with her and try this class she had heard about called Zumba. I was not interested in the least. I told her that I was not the type of person to work out with other people or to take the classes. (I know what you’re thinking if you really know me now, but this is the truth) She pleaded with me to just try it one time with her because she didn’t want to go by herself. I finally agreed and we went to Zumba.

Guess what! I absolutely loved it!! I tried to hide in the back of class because I didn’t want anyone to see how bad I was and how I couldn’t dance. The instructor was amazing and I had an awesome time. She made working out seem like something fun instead of something you just had to do if you wanted to lose weight. So, I started going to Zumba as much as my schedule would allow, which was only twice a week. It got easier to follow along the more I went and soon I even had some of the moves memorized. It was so much fun that an hour just didn’t seem like enough! I soon found out there were two more classes at the other club that I could go to! I had to change and extend my contract to be able to go to both clubs but it was totally worth it to be able to add more Zumba into my life.

The weight started coming off again and I loved every moment at the gym while I was doing Zumba. As I became more confident in my dancing I started to make my way out of the back row so I could see better and have more room. Before I knew it I was in the second row and was starting to make friends. People that were there for every class just like I was. I even got a few of my friends from outside of the gym to come try it out with me. I couldn’t understand why they didn’t love it as much as I did, but to each his own right?

I had fallen so in love with going to Zumba that I started to rearrange my schedule to allow me to go to as many Zumba classes as possible. I started saying ‘no’ to doing things with people because I had Zumba at the time. It wasn’t something people were used to, me saying ‘no’ because usually I had nothing but time on my hands and could say ‘yes’ to everything. I had found something of my own finally and was jumping in full speed! It was hard to say ‘no’ at first because I hate saying ‘no’ to people but I knew I needed to be dedicated to this if I was going to stick with it and reach my weight-loss goal.

I had read somewhere that people who aren’t on the same weight-loss path as you won’t understand why you need to be so disciplined in doing it and I was learning that first hand. People eventually stopped calling and asking me to do things and while they still supported my weight-loss efforts they seemed to wane a bit in the encouragement department. I was starting to feel torn between going to the gym and hanging out with my friends. I was starting to lose the excitement of working out knowing that working out sometimes meant that I wasn’t going out to eat with my friends, or going to the movies or just hanging out. I had lost the drive, even as fun as Zumba was, I was thinking about quitting. I knew I couldn’t do that though, I was doing so well and had lost about40 poundsby August. I was feeling better than ever and didn’t want to stop.

50 poundswas in sight and I remembered the last time I got so close to losing 50 then falling short and then gaining it all back. I was afraid that it could happen again. I knew I needed people in my life that would hold me accountable and push me to keep going when I felt like stopping. So I started praying that God would put some one or some people in my life that would push me. Really push me. Like Jillian on the Biggest Loser. Someone that wouldn’t accept my excuses and would tell me to suck it up and keep on going. Someone that would know how important this weight-loss was and not let me forget why I was doing it.

I started taking a few more classes other than Zumba. Step, Pump and Pilates were turning out to be just as much fun as Zumba! Then the Zumba instructor invited me to the sauna after one class. I had never been in a sauna before but figured it was worth a try. During the next few weeks I found friends in the sauna that were just what I was praying for. Especially the instructor that invited me in the first place. They were so encouraging about my weight-loss journey and supportive. And I definitely found the ‘Jillian’ I was praying for in the Zumba instructor. She doesn’t accept excuses and really started pushing and challenging me. (A side note here, just in case you didn’t know; I do really well when I am challenged. I have a fairly competitive nature….ok, ok a very competitive nature and when someone issues me a challenge I take it head on!) So I made it to50 pounds!! I was so excited and knew I had just reached my first big milestone. The people around me knew how much of a milestone this was for me and took me out to celebrate. They took me to get my very first pedicure as a reward and it was awesome! I now had new vigor in reaching my goal.

When I started out, I set a tentative goal of losing120 pounds. I wanted to be under200 poundsand that’s the number it would take to get there. The day I hit the60 poundslost mark, the Zumba instructor called me to front and center at class. She had asked earlier if she could tell people about me reaching my half way point and I said sure. I had no idea she was going to do this though. She had two other people bring a bar with60 poundson it over to me and had me hold it in front of everyone. She told everyone about me reaching the60 poundmark and how I had done it the old fashioned way of working out and eating less, and that the old fashioned way really works. Let me tell you, that bar was heavy! I had no idea how I had lived carrying that weight around all the time before. She said she did it so that I would remember what it was like to have that much weight and so I wouldn’t be tempted to go back to it. She asked if I thought I could dance holding that and I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have lasted for very long!

It was cool being in front of everyone and having my accomplishment celebrated by everyone. After class was over, people started coming up to me and congratulating me. People I didn’t know, some I recognized from class and some I didn’t. They asked me questions about my workouts and the foods I was eating. Then they asked how long it had taken me and I said 9 months. The look on their face changed right away to almost disappointment. They said things like “Really, it took that long?” and “People on Biggest Loser lose over100 poundsin 4 months.” It started to make me feel like my weight-loss had become a disappointment instead of an accomplishment because it was taking so long.

Now I knew starting out that it was going to take a lot of time and hard work. I knew that the Biggest Loser was not real life and that it takes a lot longer than 4 months to lose a big amount of weight, the healthy way. That’s the key, losing it the healthy way so that you can keep it off. The healthy weight to lose is an average of 1-2 poundsper week. I was losing an average of1.3 poundsper week. I was happy with that number and knew I was well on track of where I wanted and needed to be. But when people made comments about how long it was taking, it started to make me question whether I was doing everything I could and if I was doing it right.

Even with the questions in the back of my mind, I kept doing what I had been doing and the weight kept coming off. People were constantly coming up to me and complimenting me on how well I was doing. People that hadn’t seen me for months or even in a year were shocked at how I looked and said they almost didn’t recognize me, and that always made me feel great! But then they would always ask how long it had taken and most of the time I got the same response of how it seemed like such a long time. I tried to explain to them that I was doing it the healthy way, the right way. But even I was really questioning that. The more people that I had to explain this to, the less enthusiastic I became about it myself.

People would tell me about all these diets that worked for them or worked for people they knew. I would tell them that I’m not doing a diet because I have to do this for the rest of my life and I wasn’t willing to do anything I couldn’t maintain. I told them diet equaled fail because once you stopped the diet; most people gained all or even more of the weight back. So I was just changing my life for a healthier lifestyle. Most people understood that, but there were still those few that said it was still taking too long and that if I did one of the diets I would lose it faster. Luckily I had my friends from the sauna in my life and they reminded me that I was doing it the right way and the healthy way. They reminded me to ignore those negative remarks and focus on my goal and to keep going because what I was doing was working.

In about June of 2011 though, I hit my first real plateau. I had lost about70 poundsbut had hit a wall and hadn’t lost any weight for over a month. I had actually gained some weight back, but didn’t tell anyone about it. I just played it off as a normal thing that happens when you lose so much weight and that eventually I would start losing it again as long as I kept pushing. This is true, unless you’re not eating or drinking things correctly. After the sauna one night, somehow we got on the topic of the things we eat and drink and I casually mentioned how I drank only diet dr. pepper. The Zumba instructor asked how much soda I was drinking. I kind of hemmed and hawed trying to think of a good number to tell her because I didn’t want to tell her how much I was drinking. Her daughter had seen me fill up my QT cup once and said I was drinking 32oz a couple of times again. I went with that, when the truth was I actually had a 52oz cup that I was filling up at least 3 times a day. I justified it by saying that it was diet soda so it didn’t matter.

Well let me tell you, it does. At least that’s what the Zumba instructor advised me for the next ten minutes of what I like to refer to as the “Come to Jesus meeting.” I had never seen her get so agitated about something until this moment. She went off, and that’s putting it nicely I think. She was appalled that I was drinking so much soda and said it was no wonder I hadn’t lost any weight. Yes, she noticed that I had not lost weight or mentioned anything about it. I told you she doesn’t accept excuses and pushes me. So I gave up all soda immediately. I haven’t had a single drop of it since then. I was too scared to even think about it! I would go to QT to get ice in my cup for the water I was now religiously drinking and would ponder getting soda, but that lasted about a nano second when I remembered the look on the Zumba instructors face during that ‘Meeting’.

Guess what, I lost10 poundsin two weeks after giving up soda and changing a few other things in my diet I had slipped on. I was back on track.

Because of the plateau I was on I also decided to start working with a personal trainer and that made a huge impact on my routine. It was even better because the Zumba instructor just happened to be that personal trainer! At first I wondered how only 30 minutes, once a week could make any kind of a difference. Especially since most of my workouts were at least 2 hours. I wondered just what I could do any differently from what I was already doing on a daily basis. But it definitely made a difference. Having the personal attention of someone that knew what they were doing made all the difference in the world. She asked me what my goal was with having a personal trainer and I said I wanted to see just how far I could be pushed. I wanted her to push me further than I had pushed myself to this point. I wanted to see just what I could accomplish in my workout. Well, she pushed me for sure! And I could tell she did it not just because I paid her to but because she genuinely cared about my journey and helping me to do the best that I could possibly do. I felt more sore after just 30 minutes with her than I did after 3 hours of working out on my own. She had me doing things I never thought of doing and things that I never thought I could do. She believed in me, sometimes more than I believed in myself. She pushed my limits beyond what I had imagined. I looked forward to those 30 minutes a week and they became a highlight of the week for me.

By the end of July I had lost around 85 poundsand could see the 100 poundmark right around the corner. I was getting excited! I mean I had lost a lot of weight but 100 was such a huge number! I started to think about having a huge party for when I hit the 100 poundmark. One of my friends asked if I would like her to plan the party and I thought that was an awesome idea so that I could focus on losing the weight instead of planning a party. I found out later that several of my friends were in on planning the party and that I was not to have any knowledge of what was going on so that I could just focus on losing the weight. I thought that was a great idea, most of the time. There were a couple of times where I really wanted to know what was going on, especially when I heard that there were some disputes about what was going to happen at the party. I didn’t want anyone to stress out about planning it, it was supposed to just be fun and celebrate such a huge accomplishment. They continued to plan though and had even set a date. October 1^st.

Until this point I had not put any time limits on any of my weight loss because then I put too much pressure on myself and have a tendency to start doing things that are unhealthy to lose the weight. So the fact that I had a date now stressed me out a bit. Also knowing that there were so many people watching me and waiting for me to hit the 100 poundmark; I felt a little like what I imagine a celebrity feels like, having so many people watching you. People that I knew and people that I didn’t know. I heard people whisper about me and say that’s her while they tried to casually point me out to others. It was a lot of pressure; I think most of it was of my own doing though. I felt like I would be a failure if I didn’t reach the 100 poundmark by Oct 1^st. I would let down so many people if I didn’t make it. I reached a point where I was weighing myself two and three times a day to see how much I was losing. I became obsessed with trying to hit the mark and was really pushing myself.

I tend to be harder on myself than anyone else ever could be. I was constantly putting myself down; telling myself that I couldn’t do this. That I was going to fail and that people were going to be so disappointed in me. They were planning this big party for me and it was all going to be for naught because I wasn’t going to reach the100 poundmark. It was too big of a number and I was going to fall short. No matter that I had come so far already, I still kept telling myself that I couldn’t do it. I was miserable and stressed from worrying about it and questioning whether I could do it.

By the end of August I was still about8 poundsaway and I was trying not to show my stress and unbelief in myself. I mentioned to my friend about how often I was weighing myself and she said that wasn’t healthy. So we agreed that she would keep my scale at her house and only give it to me when it was time for the party. It was so hard giving her my scale. I didn’t even want to let it go when she reached for it. I had gotten so used to weighing myself so often and now I was going to go over a month without it. But I knew it was for the best and handed it over. The first few days were really hard and I even had thoughts of going to Wal-Mart and buying another one secretly. I resisted though and soon it became easier because then my focus changed to just working out and eating healthy and knowing that no matter what the scale said I was making healthy changes in my life that would benefit me for the rest of my life. I was becoming healthier no matter what the number on the scale was.

The party was still coming up though and I knew so many people were expecting me to hit the100 poundmark. Some people had even begun to say that they thought I had lost well over 100, even in the120 poundrange. I knew I couldn’t have lost that much weight though and thought that would just be another disappointment to people. I was trying so hard not to stress out about it, but just couldn’t. I didn’t want to let anyone down but didn’t believe in myself that I could do it.

I had taken the week of my party off from work so I could do a ‘last chance workout’ week. I made a goal to take 20 classes and jog20 milesin the seven days before the party. I was pretty stoked about this! I mean, who takes a vacation to workout? I do; I did. I pushed myself harder than I ever had until this point. I spent more time at the gym and loved every minute of it. I was exhausted though and the more tired I got the more down on myself I became. So instead of resting, I pushed myself harder. I ended up doing 23 classes and jogging20 miles. People thought I was crazy working out that much and taking vacation time to do it. But I wanted to do everything I could to reach the100 poundmark. People were planning a whole party for it, how could I risk letting them down?

The day of the party, I would have to say, was the best day of my life. Since I’ve never been married and don’t have any kids I had never had a ‘special’ day just for me. People talked about having that one ‘special’ day that they would re-live over and over and I just didn’t have that. Well, now I do. That day was my ‘special’ day and I loved absolutely every moment of it! It was a day full of friends and Zumba! What could be better! It was my day and I enjoyed every single second of it! I was able to enjoy it so much because my friend had given me my scale the night before so I could weigh first thing in the morning and see if I had made it. Everyone else was so sure I had made it, but I still had my doubts. I had gotten so good at doubting myself that it had become my first reaction when someone showed any kind of confidence in me. But I had made it; just barely. I had lost105.2 pounds. It was great that I had made it, but I was still disappointed in myself because so many people had said they thought I had lost more that I thought I should have lost more. Instead of being excited about breaking the100 poundmark, I was disappointed in myself for falling short of where I and everyone else seemed to think I should have been.

I still enjoyed the day though! I put aside my disappointment for the day and just had fun. The party was a smash; so many people that I loved and that loved me were there. There was food and music and of course Zumba! I couldn’t remember a time when I had ever felt so much love. My friends from the gym had gone together and gotten me the best gift I think I have ever received. They took all of my old 2 and 3x t-shirts that were much too big and had a quilt made with them. Then they all signed the back of it and I cherish it so much. I couldn’t believe they had done that. Everyone also chipped in to give me a wardrobe fund because my closet was becoming quite bare of clothes that fit. They were all getting too big! This is a good problem to have and a bad problem to have. Good because that means I’m going in the right direction! Bad because I can’t afford to keep buying that many clothes! So the wardrobe fund came in handy for sure!

I tried to keep the high I felt from that day going and use it to fuel me to reach my goal with new vigor. A few weeks after the party I was doing a ‘drop & pick’ with50 poundsof weight. If you don’t know what that is, you have your bar and you stand on one leg while you squat down to pick it up and then squat down to put it back down. On my second time picking it up, I heard a pop in my right knee along with a sharp burst of pain. I dropped the weight back down and kind of moved my knee around to make sure it was ok. There was a little pain but I chose to ignore it like I had done with every other pain I had felt. Pain was just part of working out sometimes and I had just pushed through it so many times I didn’t think this time should be any different.

Three weeks went by and I didn’t feel any further pain so I kept going with my enthusiasm up and kept trying to push myself harder and harder. People were warning me to not push myself too hard and risk getting an injury but I just brushed the advice off. I had been pushing myself hard for so long that I thought I could just keep going at this pace. I was working out two and sometimes three times a day. Trying to jog as much as I could along with all of the classes I was taking. Don’t you just hate it when other people are right and you chose not to listen to them?

I was going to do some box jumps one day (jumping front, side, back, side and so on in a box shape hence the name box jump). I jumped forward with no problem and as soon as I jumped to the side my knee gave out on me. I continued the rest of the workout though, careful not to do too much with my knee now. But I wanted to finish, I am not a quitter I told myself. The pain wasn’t a quitter either. It continued to get worse when I went back to work. It was almost to the point where I could hardly stand to walk on it or put any kind of pressure on it at all. I was texting my friends about it and they suggested I go to the emergency room. I absolutely did not want to do that because a trip to the doctor or ER would mean taking the chance of hearing that something was really wrong and I would have to stop working out for a while. One friend had even suggested it could be a tear which would mean surgery. This was not an option I was willing to risk.

After much convincing from my friends though, I broke down and went to the emergency room. It was the shortest emergency room visit ever I think. I got there a little after 9:30pm, sat in the waiting room for all of five minutes before they called me back and was talking to the doctor ten minutes after that. I told him how I had injured it; he moved it around, asked a couple of questions and declared that it wasn’t broken. He said to elevate it and go see my doctor the next day so they could look at it more. He was in the room with me for all of five minutes maybe. I was leaving the ER a little after10:00pm. So 30 minutes and $150 co-pay later and I was still in the same place as I had been, just with the knowledge that it was not broken. I thought it was quite a waste of time and money and my knee still hurt more than any other pain I had ever felt. I have quite a high tolerance for pain but this was killing me.

So I went to my doctor, with more encouragement from my friends because I still didn’t want to go and risk hearing any bad news. Well guess what, I heard bad news. The doctor examined my knee, moved it around quite a bit more than the ER doctor had. He said he didn’t think anything was torn and that it was probably just a sprain. I gave a sigh of relief that as long as it was just a sprain then I wouldn’t need surgery. Then he said the most devastating words I could hear. No Zumba, running, jumping, squatting or lunging. I was speechless. Was he kidding? Me? No Zumba or running? These had become my favorite things to do and I looked forward to them every day. They were my stress relievers and made me happy. They got my blood going and made me sweat and I couldn’t imagine even going one day without them let alone a couple of weeks!

Another tidbit of information about me for you; I love routine. I had my workout routine down. On any given day of the week I could tell you exactly what I was going to do for my workout and looked forward to each and every one. If I missed a workout for any reason, I just didn’t feel right. I was so dismayed that I couldn’t do the things I loved; actually angry is probably a better word. I didn’t even think about the things that I could still do, I only focused on the fact that I couldn’t do the things I really loved. So to me, this meant that I couldn’t do anything. It made me feel powerless and lost….and angry.

My friends tried to stay positive and remind me of the things I could still do. They mentioned that it could be worse and that this was just a minor injury that I could get through. I couldn’t let go of this anger though. I couldn’t imagine it being worse; this was bad enough to me. I sat at home the next two days and nights and didn’t want to talk to anyone. Several people texted me but I ignored them. There was nothing anyone could say that would make me feel better about this situation. I imagined the next several weeks of sitting around and doing nothing except eating and gaining all of my weight back. I know I wouldn’t have gained it all back but thinking that I was going to gain any weight back because of this upset me. I had worked so hard and it all came to screeching halt and I thought I was going to have to start all over again.

People couldn’t understand why this was such a big deal to me. It was a break and a time to rest my body they said. That it was my body’s way of telling me to slow down. When it came to my working out though, I didn’t have a slow down button. I had a push hard button and that was it. I thought that if I let up at all that I would start to backslide and wouldn’t hit my goal. I knew how easy it was to fall out of a workout routine from hearing other people talk about it; and then how hard it is to get back into it and that worried me. What if I fell so far out of my routine that I couldn’t get back to it?

My friend, the Zumba instructor, texted me to find out what my plan was. I told her it was to sit at home and do nothing. Well, as you can probably imagine, this was not accepted well at all. She told me that this injury didn’t mean I had to stop working out completely; I just had to modify and find things that I could do. I could still work out my abs and my arms. And I could still ride the bike for cardio. I don’t like riding the bike though so this did not sound very appealing. And modifying? I was a high impact all the time person, how could I go to modifying? It seemed like such a big step back. But my friend pointed out that I needed to be at the gym with people that loved me and would help me through this. She said that she would help me figure out what I could do and help me with my diet to make sure that I didn’t gain any weight during this time. I consented and showed up at the gym. I still wasn’t happy though and everyone could tell.

I went to pump and didn’t really say much of anything to anyone. I modified when I could and did other things when I couldn’t. When I looked at myself in the mirror, even I could see how angry I was. But I couldn’t make myself get out of this funk. Then pump was over and Zumba was about to begin. I packed up my stuff quickly and left to go ride the bike. I was feeling very emotional and I almost started to cry as I walked away from Zumba. I put my ipod on and stared blankly at the TV while I rode the bike, all the while thinking about how I would much rather be doing Zumba.

When Zumba was over, I met everyone in the sauna but still didn’t say a word. When I get angry I get really quiet for those of you who may not know. So I sat in the sauna quietly while everyone else talked. Someone tried to say some more words of encouragement to me and I just nodded as their words went in one ear and out the other. I know everyone was trying to help me feel better but I was stuck in this funk and couldn’t figure out how to pull myself out of it. No matter how much I wanted to. It felt like I was in a dark, muddy cesspool with no way to get out no matter how hard I tried.

Luckily I have friends that were not going to give up on me. As we sat, cooling down after the sauna the Zumba instructor sat down next to me with a class schedule. She had highlighted the classes I could do and said she would show me things I could do on the weight machines when Zumba or boot camp was going on. Then she got serious about my attitude and how it was being perceived by the people around me. She reminded me that people were watching me and they were wondering how I could let something this small get me down so far. That everyone thought I was a strong person that could push through anything and that I had come too far to let this stop me. We talked for at least 20 minutes about how I needed to show people that I wasn’t going to let this win and just give up. That I was going to fight through this and not go down so easily. She pointed out that this was just a speed bump on my journey and not a brick wall.

She pulled me out of that dark, muddy cesspool and helped me get my focus back. She didn’t give up on me when I had given up on myself. And of course she didn’t accept my excuses but gave me options for things I could do. She gave me a diet to follow too. Now when I say diet I don’t mean like the Adkins Diet or some other fad diet. I mean just my daily eating habits. And it was completely doable. Lots of fruits, vegetables, soup and yogurt and I was getting to eat something every 2-3 hours. It was pretty strict but I never felt hungry or unsatisfied. She also gave me my scale that day so that I could weigh myself and see where I was at and said she would give it back to me again in a week so I could see how the diet and new exercise regime worked out.

I was leery at first and didn’t believe that I could really lose any weight with the little amount of cardio I was getting. I thought I might just maintain where I was at, but there was no way I could lose weight this way. Since I couldn’t do anything with any kind of impact to my knee, the only cardio I was getting was riding the bike and that barely made me break a sweat. I did it though; I did the weights that my friend showed me. I did the few classes that I could and rode the bike during the classes that I couldn’t. I followed the diet to a T and a week slowly went by.

My friend gave me my scale and I took it home and stared at it. Usually I get excited to step on the scale and see how much I’ve lost. But this time I didn’t want to step on it; I was too afraid to see that I had gained weight. I probably stood there staring at the scale for a good five minutes, trying to give myself a pep talk. I took a deep breath, closed my eyes and stepped on the scale. I was still holding my breath when I opened my eyes and looked at the number. I couldn’t believe it! I had lost5.8 pounds!! In one week!!! I stepped off the scale and immediately stepped back on. How could this be possible? Surely it was a mistake. Sure enough,5.8 poundslost! I stepped off and back on again still thinking this was impossible. I started to jump up and down with excitement and then remembered that that was not a good idea.

I was excited about losing such a big amount of weight but still not excited to miss out on the workouts I loved so much. Every day was hard to watch everyone else doing Zumba when I couldn’t. I told someone it was like putting a cheesecake in front of me and telling me I couldn’t have any. (Cheesecake is my favorite food by the way) I kept at it though and another week went by. Again, my friend gave me my scale and I this time I was a little more excited to see what it had to say. I wondered if it was possible to lose weight with the slower workout regime and went through the same pep talk as the previous week. I held my breath as I stepped on the scale…..7.2 pounds lost this time! I couldn’t believe it! This was the most weight I had lost in one week since I had started losing weight. I had lost13 poundsin two weeks!

I was also less than200 poundsfor the first time in over 20 years! This was the most exciting moment in my weight loss journey and I was texting everyone to share my excitement. 20 years is a long time to be so overweight and I had fought my way through it. I looked at myself in the mirror and I almost couldn’t recognize the person looking back at me. After looking at myself for so long being so big it was hard to get it to really sink in that this was the new me. I actually liked looking at my reflection instead of trying to stay away from mirrors. Until this point I had still looked in the mirror and seen the same fat girl that I had looked at for the last 20 years. I didn’t see the weight-loss everyone else did. But now I was looking in the mirror and seeing the person I had become. I was healthy and fit and actually liked the way I was looking. I made a new before and after picture and just stared at it for what seemed like forever. It still amazed me that I could have let myself get so big.

My knee started to feel better and I slowly started to get back into my normal workout routine. I had missed my favorite classes for over three weeks and was more than ready to jump back in. Everyone made sure I started out slow because they knew me so well and knew that I would have just jumped right back in without a second thought and risked re-injuring myself. Thank goodness for friends!

People started asking me how much more weight I was trying to lose and if I was ever going to slow down my workout schedule. I would tell them that it was tentative but probably 10-15 poundsmore. A lot of them started saying that I was losing too much weight now and that I better stop or slow down before I disappeared. At first I just laughed and assured them that I would not disappear or lose too much weight. I had a goal and I wanted to reach my goal. But the more people continued to say it, the more it got to me. My friends in the sauna assured me that they would not let me lose too much weight and they would definitely tell me if they thought that’s what I was doing. But people kept saying it and it was starting to get to me.

I also started feeling like I was being constantly watched under a microscope. People seemed to be watching my every move and some of them seemed like they were just waiting for me to take a wrong step and fall. If I ate something ‘unhealthy’ people would comment and make remarks like ‘I thought you were on a diet’ or ‘I didn’t think you ate real food anymore’ or ‘Uh-oh, are you not watching what you’re eating anymore’. I would try to explain that I was not on any specific diet and that it was ok to eat something ‘unhealthy’ every once in a while. I wasn’t denying myself ‘real’ food as they liked to call it. I tried to tell them, everything in moderation. They would just nod and snicker as if they didn’t believe me. So it felt like people kept watching from the sidelines, waiting for their chance to pounce on any mistake I might make.

I was also starting to have problems with my hormones/emotions. My friend had warned me that with such a big weight loss sometimes came wild hormones. It had started a few months before but not as bad and I was able to push my way through the ups and downs mostly. I was really struggling with it now though. My mood/emotions could change at the snap of a finger and for no reason. I knew it was happening but couldn’t do anything to stop it. It seemed as though I was really high and happy or really low and sad or angry. There never was a happy medium, just really high or really low. I tried to fight it when I could feel it changing to low but just couldn’t. It was really frustrating knowing that it was happening but not knowing how to fend it off.

It started affecting my desire to go to the gym and my eating habits. It would be time to go to the gym and I just didn’t want to anymore. On the days that I didn’t have a class to go to and would normally go do my own workout, I chose to sit at home on the couch instead. On the days that I had class I would go but only because I knew people were expecting me there, but my heart wasn’t in it anymore. I started eating more and more things that were not on my diet. I also started drinking alcohol more. I am not much of a drinker, maybe once or twice a month with the girls when we go out to dinner. Other than that I don’t drink and have not kept alcohol in my house for over 10 years. But now I had alcohol in my house and was drinking it almost every night. This was not me but I felt powerless to do anything about it. I mentioned a few times about drinking but didn’t really tell anyone just how much I was actually drinking.

I finally went to my doctor and she ran a lot of blood work to check all of my hormone levels. But when the results came back everything showed normal. And not in the high or low range of normal; right in the middle, perfectly normal. My doctor said she was baffled and didn’t really know why I was having these problems still. So she referred me to an Endocrinologist and mentioned something about the possibility of having PCOS. Now I had to wait for the insurance to approve the referral and set up an appointment to see another doctor.

That brings me to today. I’m still waiting to get my appointment with the Endocrinologist. I’m still on an emotional roller coaster but have told my close friends more about it so no longer feel alone in it. I knew I was going down a very dark path and that if I didn’t turn back soon it was going to get really bad. I dumped the alcohol in my house down the sink and started going back to the gym even when I didn’t want to. I’m getting back on track with my eating, or really trying to. I’m an emotional eater so when my emotions are like a roiling sea as they are now, I really just want to eat junk and eat a lot of it.

As I have written this, it has helped me tremendously. It has made me go back and remember the struggles that I have faced and overcome over the last two years. So I know that this is just another obstacle that I will overcome. I am not going back to where I was before and will press on towards my goal. No matter how long it takes, I will reach my goal. And then I will maintain it which has its own struggles I’ve heard. I am not a quitter and refuse to take the easy way out of this. Every obstacle I overcome only makes me stronger!

Lots of people have said that they wished they could lose weight like me. Well guess what, I didn’t lose it by wishing. It took lots of hard work and discipline. Through this journey I have also learned that this is not something that I did or could ever do on my own. I never would have made it past the first six months if I had tried to do it all on my own. I could not have done this without the support and encouragement of my friends. Most especially my friends from the gym. I never expected to make friends at the gym, but I have made great friendships that I will cherish forever. They pushed me, pulled me sometimes, cheered me on, picked me up and helped me on every step I have taken of this journey. I don’t think I could ever convey how much their friendship and support have really meant to me. I also could not have done this without God. There were plenty of times when I would get angry with Him and turn my back on Him. Thanks goodness He never turns His back on me and is always there waiting for me when I turn back around. I know He is and has been with me every step of the way, cheering me on and giving me the support I needed.

It will be two years in March since I started this weight loss journey and it has been one of the hardest roads I have ever traveled. There were plenty of times when I wanted to give up and throw in the towel. There were plenty of times when it was hard and seemed easier to just quit.  But no matter how hard it was or will be it’s totally worth it. My health is worth it. I’m worth it. I will never go back to that300 poundgirl that didn’t believe in herself. I believe in myself and know that I can do anything I put my mind to. One of my favorite quotes is “Whether you think you can or you can’t, you’re probably right!” And guess what! Not only do I know I can…..I DID!!!!

What do you see when you look in the mirror? Sometimes it depends on the day for me. If I’m having a good day, then I like what I see in the mirror. If I’m having a bad day, well then, not so much. I can be really hard on myself when I look in the mirror. I can find every single flaw in a matter of seconds and then I look at myself and point them all out. And even though I have lost 75 pounds, 15 inches and 5 sizes I look in the mirror and still see the same fat person I saw 2 years ago. Sometimes I catch a glimpse of myself in a reflection on a door or window and think, “Whoa! That’s me? I look so good!” and it surprises me. Why does it surprise me? I have worked hard to get where I am, why do I keep putting myself down. I am my own harshest critic and a lot of the time I don’t think I measure up to the standards I place on myself. Why are we so hard on ourselves? Or am I the only one who struggles with this? It’s funny, when I see myself in dreams, I’m always thin; I wonder why that is? It’s always been that way. One day my dream will come true and I have to keep reminding myself that in a year or in 6 months I’m going to be so glad I kept pushing myself. But I also have to figure out how to be happy with who and what I look like today because I don’t want to live my life waiting for that moment a year from now. I have to figure out how to look in the mirror now and like what I see. And like what I see all the time and not just on the good day. Easier said than done, I know. Any thoughts? What do you see when you look in the mirror?

Forgiveness….the other F word.

–verb (used with object)

Have you ever seen the movie “The Runaway Bride”? With Julia Roberts and Richard Gere. Great movie. Do you remember how Richard’s character pointed out to Julia’s character that she couldn’t ever marry a guy because she didn’t know who she really was? That she didn’t even know what kind of eggs were her favorite? She had to learn who she really was before she could move on in her life. That’s where I am; learning who I really am. Learning to be me. I have two journey’s that I have begun in the last year, and I think they go hand in hand to my learning to be me. My first journey is my weight-loss journey. I have lost 75 pounds since March of 2010 and still have about 40 more to go. As long as I can remember I have been over-weight. Now I’m so close to being where I have always dreamed of being and it terrify’s me. For so long I have used my weight as a shield of protection. It has helped me keep people at arm’s length. It allowed me to not grow too close to people because in my head I didn’t love myself so how could I believe anyone else could love me? And as long as I believed no one really loved me then I would never have to worry about being hurt. Which leads to my second journey, my becoming a Christian journey. Like Julia’s character in the movie, for a long time now I have said and done things as a Christian because I thought that’s what I was supposed to do, what people expected me to do. I had so many things burried deep inside me but I kept piling more dirt on top of them to keep them burried, so that I wouldn’t have to deal with it. And as long as I did and said the things people expected, then they wouldn’t ask about the things that I struggle with and I would never have to drudge them up and work through them. So what do these two journey’s have in common? I can’t hide anymore; I can’t just continue to go through life not knowing who I really am. These journey’s are allowing me to learn who I can be. They are giving me a unique opportunity to become the person that I really am. To embrace the life that God has created for me. It’s like a butterfly emerging from a cacoon. What I will become after persisting through these journey’s will not be anything like who I was going into them. I get to recreate myself and be who I have always wanted to be. My past will no longer dictate who I am. It has helped mold me, or mold the cacoon that I’m in, but it will not decide what I will look like when I come out. I’m going to figure out what eggs are my favorite. I’m going to learn to be me.

Did you know it’s about 18 inches from your brain to your heart? That doesn’t seem like a great distance at all; but when it comes to knowing something in your head and believing it in your heart the distance can grow dramatically. At least for me it does. I know, in my head, that God loves me and that I’m supposed to trust and rely on Him for everything. But in my heart, I find it hard to take that step of faith and put my life completely in His hands and really trust Him to take care of me. I imagine it’s like there is supposed to be a bridget between my head and my heart. A bridget that the information can go back and forth across so that both are on the same page. I also imagine that my bridge collapsed a long time ago so that connection is no longer there. When a bridge goes out, there is no simple fix for it. You can’t just throw a log across it and expect that to be suffice. It may work for a little while, but it won’t last for long. It takes a long time to build or re-build a bridge. I’m working on re-building my bridge and I know there is a perfect carpenter to help me do it. Jesus is helping me, one section of bridge at a time. I know in my head that He is always with me and that He loves me; and every day the bridge gets a little closer to allowing me to fully believe that in my heart. There are days when it rains and not a lot of work gets done; sometimes even weeks at a time lately. Something happens to disrupt the building or even tears a piece of the bridge, that I have worked so hard to build, away. But Jesus doesn’t give up, He picks up His hammer and says ‘Let’s get back to work. We’re not done yet.’ He won’t let me give up and has put people in my life to help me that won’t let me give up either. I am thankful for that because I’m looking forward to the day when my bridge is done. When the things I know in my head become the things I believe in my heart. When my bridge is no longer out.

Mary, Mary, quite contrary, how does your garden grow? I heard a sermon once about how our hearts are like soil where things grow. Depending on what you put into the soil decides what grows out of it. With a lot of the anger I’ve been feeling, I have been wondering how my heart is doing. What have I been putting into it? When I get down or angry I tend to stop praying and stop reading my Bible. I don’t listen to as much Christian/worship music and in general don’t have good thoughts. So I imagine there have been a lot of weeds growing in my heart’s soil. I don’t know much about gardening but I do know that weeds are not a good thing. They choke out everything that is good. That’s what the weeds have been doing in my heart; choking out everything that is good. I hear people talk about how hard and tedious it is to pull weeds but that it must be done in order for their garden to thrive. No matter how much good stuff you put into the garden, if you don’t pull out the weeds, the good things won’t be worth anything. So I have a lot of weeds to pull. And it’s definitely hard and tedious at times. It takes a lot of work and sometimes it feels like when I pull out one there are two more waiting to take it’s place. But I can’t give up and let the weeds take over. I have to keep pulling so that I can one day have a beautiful heart. And even then, I know that you can pull out all the weeds and think you’re done but if you don’t keep an eye on it the weeds will come back. Then, it’s much easier to pull them out as soon as you see them than to wait and let them build up. So I’m working on pulling my weeds and putting good things in so that my heart will grow into something wonderful. Something that people can look at and say ‘What a beautiful garden.’ How is your garden?

I was listening to one of my many podcasts a couple of months ago and someone said something that has stuck with me. Have you ever heard anyone say that God will never give you more than you can handle? This person argued that this was not true. They said that not once did the Bible say that, so I looked it up and sure enough, no where in the Bible does it say that God will never give you more than you can handle. So I have been pondering this off and on, especially with all of the struggles I have been going through. I have had many times in the last several months where I wondered how I could go even one more minute with the pain and anger that is inside of me. I will even go so far as to admit that I have wished it would all just end. One night was so hard that I went to bed and the last thing I remember thinking was that I wished I wouldn’t wake up in the morning. I had a thought on this, that sometimes God probably does give us more than we can handle so that we will turn to Him to help us through it. I try so hard to take care of myself and not allow anyone else in to help, even and s0metimes especially God. So maybe He has allowed these struggles so that I will stop relying on myself completely and rely on Him completely. That’s hard for me, I’m not good at relying on anyone else. I have essentially been taking care of myself since I can remember so I have had to try and learn how to rely on God. This has definitely been a very hard lesson to learn. I imagine how nice it would be to have someone else that I can rely on to take care of things or take care of me and I yearn for it so much but at the same time I struggle to take that next step in doing so. I’m ready though; I’m going to start small and work my way up, that’s the only way I can think of to do it. So here goes nothing…..or actually, here goes everything.

Do you remember, in Algebra, x + y = z? When you had to find x, and sometimes the problems got so complex they took a whole page to work your way to the answer? I LOVED those! I know, weird right. But I did and still do love things like that. Crossword puzzles, Soduko and Cross Sums…yep, love them. They came easy to me. I saw the problem as a challenge and when you followed the formula you always got the right answer. I guess I’m a logical thinker in that way. I wish all of life were like that. That if you have a problem, you plug in the right numbers, follow the formula and you always get the right answer or outcome. I have had some struggles these past couple of months. I have been filled with a lot of anger that I don’t know what to do with. I have a tendancy to bury things in the bottom of a drawer and pretend their not there instead of working through them because that means I have to face my emotions. Emotions aren’t very logical though. I don’t know what to do with them. There are no numbers to plug in or formulas to follow to deal with them. I wish there were an easy answer because I know I can’t bury these emotions in the bottom or a drawer anymore. I know that I have to take it one day at a time and one small step at a time. I guess in that way it’s similar to taking up a whole page to find x. There was no way to look at a complex problem and know immediately what x was. You had to work your way through the problem, one line at a time until you had nothing left except x = 5. So I promised myself that I wouldn’t bury my emotions anymore and that I would work through this until I make it through. I don’t know if I’ll ever have a difinitive answer like x = 5 but I know there is an end to this and when I get there it will totally be worth the struggle I’m going through to get there.

Forgiveness. It seems like a simple enough word. It’s something I think we can all understand and have given and received throughout our lives. Do you find it harder to give forgiveness or receive it? I guess it depends on the situation. I think I have come to a point where I know I am forgiven by God and almost take it for granted. And I know that God has commanded me to forgive others as He has forgiven me. I’m faced with a decision right now to forgive and let my anger and hurt go or to keep holding onto it. I know the right answer is to forgive and let go of my anger and hurt, but to be perfectly honest, I just don’t want to.

A little back story: Some of you may know my history with my dad; and for those of you who don’t know I’ll tell you that we don’t have a good relationship at all. He is an alcoholic and has been ever since I can remember. I hadn’t heard from my dad in a year an half, until yesterday. I had tried to call him several times and he wouldn’t return my calls. I heard through my mom that he was in communication with my sister and brother so I knew he was still alive; I guess he just didn’t want to talk to me. Then, boom, out of no where I get a call from him yesterday. He dropped quite a bomb on me too. He said he went through a 90 day rehab for his alcoholism and no longer drinks alcohol. My first reaction was, really? How long is this going to last? Because he has promised and said that he was going to do so many things that he didn’t, how will this time be any different? I didn’t say that out loud of course, I said ‘oh congratulations’, at least that’s what I think I said. I was a little shell-shocked I think and don’t remember much else of the conversation. My second thought was what made him do this now and why couldn’t he do this years and years ago? My third thought was, why is he calling and telling me this after no communication for a year and a half and he acts like everything is normal. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do at this point. I do know that I thought I wasn’t angry or hurt and that I had dealt with it, but apparently I just burried it and it has come bubbling up, again. I know God wants me to forgive him completely so that I can let go of this hurt and anger but that just seems too easy. After almost 32 years of dealing with this and all the negative effects from it, I’m just supposed to forgive him and let it all go? Just like that? I just can’t do it. I did have an appifany about one of the reasons I’m so angry at him last night. I was playing through a mock discussion with him in my head and I pictured him asking me why I was so angry with him and what he did when I was a kid that I’m angry about and without even thinking I blurted out ‘because I was so scared of you as a kid that I believed the 17 year old boy that raped me when he was babysitting us when he told me I would get in trouble if I told my dad what he did’. Kids shouldn’t be scared of their parents. Respect them, yes; but there is a huge difference between respect and fear. I grew up knowing only fear and couldn’t even tell my dad when I had been hurt. He didn’t protect me like a father is supposed to. How can I not be hurt and angry about that? How can I just let that go? How do I even begin to break down the wall I have built up where he is concerned? Especially when I don’t want to?

You know how you make this list of things that need to get done but then you get distracted or just plain lazy and nothing gets done? I’ve had that happen two of my weekends in a row now. I kept saying I was going to finish unpacking and it didn’t get done. Part was because of other things that came up and had to be taken care of and I’ll be perfectly honest and say that part was because I was just lazy and didn’t want to do it. That laziness spills over into so many aspects of my life, including God. There are things I know God wants me to do and I just choose not to do them; because of laziness or because I’d just rather do things my own way. God has promised us so much, and we get frustrated or upset when we don’t see those promises come to fruition; but most of the time it’s our own fault it doesn’t. God is not going to do everything for us; He didn’t create us to be His puppets that He could control. We have to do our part.

Joshua 1:2-3 “Moses my servant is dead. Therefore, the time has come for you to lead these people, the Israelites, across the Jordan River into the land I am giving them. I promise you what I promised Moses: ‘Wherever you set foot, you will be on land I have given you—

Everything that God has promised us, He has already set before us; we just have to go get it. God had promised the Israelites the land across the Jordan River and had already given it to them. In order to get it though, they had to get up and go across the river. The land could not and would not have been theirs if they had chosen to stay where they were and see if God brought it to them. We have to stop being lazy and waiting for God to do everything for us and get up and get it. How many opportunities do we miss out on because we’re too lazy or too distracted to go get them? How many of God’s promises do we let slip through our lives because they aren’t handed to us on a silver platter? How much closer could our relationship with God be if we didn’t just sit back and wait for Him to do everything for us but got up an walked boldly in faith, with Him, to the promises He has given us? So what are you waiting for? Go get it!!