Monday, August 25, 2014

New Beginnings

Welcome to "Ready For Change"!

I am avid blog reader myself and have considered starting my own for a long time - well that time is now! I have started a journey to get fit and have had success so far the last 3 months and I want to stay motivated to continue. This will keep me accountable and can hopefully help others who are focusing on their health too!

(I'm going to try and not use a million exclamation points in my posts, but I can't promise anything)

A lot of this information that I'm going to share can be found on my About Me page, but I will be fleshing it out more here for my first post. If you're not into reading a ton, just check out my nice timeline I created for your viewing pleasure.


Now for the details:

Growing up, I never had weight issues. I was very active as a teenager, as I was a dancer. I danced for my high school team (and was the captain my senior year) and also danced at a studio. I was had 20+ hours of dance classes and practices each week and loved it. I didn't always love to competitive nature of dancing, but I absolutely had a passion for it. I remember leaving classes and I would be soaking in sweat - it was such a good feeling! I was fortunate enough to have a home-cooked dinner most nights and they were usually well balanced. However, I do remember eating straight junk food for lunch most school days once I was old enough to buy my own lunch. I honestly had a bag of hot fries for lunch each day (so gooood, but so gross at the same time).

I went into college and as most students do, gained weight steadily. I was continuing to eat junk food and not working out regularly. I also adding alcohol into the mix, something I never did in high school. So it wasn't shocking that I gained weight, but I was having a great college experience, so I didn't really care too much. My Mom and sister would make comments to me about gaining weight when I would come home for breaks, which definitely bothered me, but not enough to change my habits. Guys were still into me, so I couldn't have gained that much weight, right? Ahhh the power of alcohol...


College was an emotional experience for me in many ways, but my Mom was also battling colon cancer at the time and passed away in between my sophomore and junior year of college. That honestly rocked my world and I didn't handle it well. I continued to eat and drink more and gained even more weight.

Post college, I was living in Baltimore and still drinking regularly and eating out a lot. The first apartment I lived in was across from a Chipotle... you can guess how that turned out for me. The one good thing about my early twenties, was I did regularly work out and looking back, it showed. I looked more toned and not as bloated. I was fortunate to be working for a college that had a great gym and locker room, so I could workout in the morning and get ready there.


I really thought I needed to lose weight constantly after college, and I did, but looking back at these photos I look skinny to me. I guess I had to gain more to finally do something about it.

I moved to North Carolina after living in Baltimore for 4 years and it was the best decision I have ever made. I was closer to family, had a great job opportunity that taught me a ton and met my the love of my life. We met about a month after I had moved and we got pretty serious pretty fast. We just knew this was it. I didn't have the perfect body and he didn't have the perfect body. We were comfortable around each other and it worked! I would say I worked out 2-3 a week, and attempted to eat healthy. But we got into a bad fast-food rut and it showed. My job really stressed me out and my clothes started fitting me less and less. I definitely wasn't happy about how I looked, but I learned to hide my weight. I was too focused on my relationship and career, that my health wasn't a priority.


Since moving to Florida together we have focused more on our health and are fortunate enough to be outside 95% of the year here to encourage movement. I made the ultimate decision in May to make my health a priority. Looking at the photos below, I had that light-bulb moment, I was sick of feeling and looking like crap! Our upcoming wedding serves as a catalyst, but this is much bigger than looking thin at my wedding. Cancer, diabetes, and heart disease run in my family - and health and diet play a role in them. The more I can do to take care of myself now, the better!


My plan is to not share my actual weight on the blog. People (including me) get so focused on a number and not all the other factors. I constantly compared my height and weight to other women when reading their blogs and it's not healthy to compare! I remember reading a blog post last year and she was trying to lose weight post-baby. She wrote that 9 months pregnant, she weighed less than I currently do now and she was my height. It was just crushing... so I will not be doing that to anyone! I will instead be focusing on pounds lost and occasionally talk about my clothing sizes. Here are my goals below. I will keep updated this in the side bar as I make progress.


I think that is enough writing for one post!


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