A fresh start.

With so many things that have been going on in my life, with having switching part time jobs from Hallmark to a Bookstore (that I'm completely in love with), there's one thing that I'm not entirely pleased with. That's my weight. This isn't the first time I've tried to lose weight. But today, I want to share my journey and how far I've come in the past few years.

It was the summer of 2008 when I first really gained the weight. I was engaged at the time to a guy who had a job working security at the local casino. He worked nights and wasn't happy, so he interviewed for another job and put his two weeks notice in at that casino. It wasn't a smart idea, since the place he was going to work at didn't call him. Upon telling him to call, repeatedly, he finally caved in after weeks of saying, "Oh they'll call me." Turns out when he did call, they had forgotten about him. This was June 2008. Over the next two months, he didn't have a job. It was also during this time that I became incredibly unhappy with him and how everything was going. We ate Wawa pretty much ALL the time. (For those that don't know what Wawa is, it's a PA, NJ, DE, MD thing. (www.wawa.com) It's a great small market that I've grown up my entire life and have always loved it. But during that summer is when I gained all that weight. My highest was at 232lbs. I was not happy and everyone around me new it, but me. I was in denial and dove into food to make it better when it just made me incredibly unhealthy.

(A picture of me in July 2008)

It wasn't until that October where I realized how unhealthy I was. The owner of the horse stables that I rode at pulled me aside and said that I had to lose the weight or else I couldn't ride. It made me really sad. I had done a number to my body by getting that heavy. I didn't know where to start. A few of my coworkers were doing Weight Watchers, so I tried it out. Within the next four months, I lost 40lbs. I had cut out all that wawa that I was eating and ate things that were more healthy for me. I weighed between 192-195 by the end of February 2009. I tried to get it down more, but it was hard to do that. I didn't have the drive to do it.

This past summer, the 2011 PA Renaissance Faire started up again for its 31st year. I was more than overjoyed with that. It was then with all that walking I did, going there every single weekend (sometimes for both Saturday and Sunday), I was feeling more fit. I felt a lot better. At the end of the season, I got down to 178. I had dropped 10lbs in 3 months 'cause of all the walking and drinking lots of water. And now that I look at it, I know I can get it down more. With it getting colder out, I don't get to have a lot of resources, because joining a gym is too expensive for me right now. So with that said, I have a few things that I will be doing. I have workout dvds from Jillian Michaels that I'll be doing. I also have her Wii Fit game that I'll be pulling out again as well.

It feels odd to share this story with strangers, but I only hope that with me doing this I can gain some more perspective on my life. I don't want to be a lazy bones and not be active more. I'm done using excuses of me being too tired because of work (mainly since I work with children). But that's more of a reason to get fit so I can be more active and do my body right by being healthy.

I don't know about me posting what I eat as I know what I have to cut out. I know what I have to do and in order to do that, I just need to find that momentum and stick with it.

So watch out world! I will still be me, but a new looking me will be heading your way!!