Goal: Fitness

Being fit is near the top of my goal list. When I was younger, I hated being active. P.E. was my worst and most feared class. I couldn’t understand how people could do 7 minute miles, or actually want to participate in after school activities. They must be crazy!

My then boyfriend, now husband introduced me to the gym. It was a struggle to get into it, but after forcing myself to go a few times, it clicked. I loved the gym. I started spending upwards of an hour there every day. Sometimes I’d go twice a day. The difference was unbelievable, both in how great I felt, and how I looked.

I went to Gold’s Gym for a while, and I really liked them. The gym was clean, the staff was friendly, and I liked the variety of machines they had. But my husband (we got married!) and I decided to try a gym closer to our condo. We signed up and I decided to take up their offer of a free personal training session included with signup.

I waltzed on in there, feeling completely jazzed due to my NoXplode energy drink (I loved those things), ready to get what I thought would be the work out of my life. I am 5’7″ and I weighed 130 lbs that day. I was in the best shape of my life.

The personal trainer sat me in the gym office and asked me a series of questions. He weighed me, and use the pincers all over my flesh. I was in there for at least 45 minutes, my frustration level rising. I wanted to work out, not sit in an office. I was practically twitching from my energy drink. He came back to me with the “results” and proceed to tell me I was overweight. I was beyond shocked. He tried to sell me personal training. I left that day without buying a personal training package, and without even working out.

That was the precise moment my enthusiasm for working out died. I couldn’t believe I had been working my ass off (literally) and I was still considered overweight. I know now that his opinion should not have effected me so much, but at the time, I was very impressionable, and obsessed with looking great.

My gym time decreased as time went on. I started going only 4 days a week, and then two days a week. Then my husband and I moved to our farm and we didn’t have a gym membership anymore. My gym going activity dropped to zero. The only activity I had was taking care of the farm, and I ended up making up for that in the amount of food I consumed. I just flat out stopped caring, and I ate whatever I wanted, sometimes eating all day without a thought to it.

2009 or 2010 was when I watched what I ate, and worked out. Unfortunately my pictures were corrupted so I don’t have any gym pictures from that time. I gradually cared less and less as time went on, although in 2011, I saw that picture A of myself, and was shocked at how fat I had gotten. I temporarily lost weight, as seen in picture B. But then I stopped caring again.

I used to take lots of photos of myself, but I stopped. In 2013, my husband and I got a greyhound and wanted to take pictures with it for the old owners. It was the first photo I had taken in a while, and ended up being one of the only from 2013. I saw it and cringed. My solution wasn’t to lose weight, or watch what I ate, it was just to avoid mirrors and not take more photos. It was simply too hard to try to control my desire for food.

Early this year, my husband and I visited old friends whom we hadn’t seen in years, a lovely couple, beautiful inside and out. We prepped to go over there, and I was nervous. I hadn’t gotten dressed up for anything in what seemed like forever, and been living in sweatpants. As I went through my closet, I got a figurative slap in the face as I realized that literally nothing fit me, except for sweatpants. It wasn’t just that I now weighed 180 lbs, I couldn’t believe how little thought I had given to my appearance. I had no clothes that fit, I hadn’t worn makeup in forever, or done anything with my hair. I had put no effort into my appearance at all. I couldn’t believe what had happened to me. I used to be the extreme girlie-girl, with a full closet, buckets of makeup, regular salon visits, and a social life.

It was beyond vanity, I had become a virtual recluse, never leaving the house, not bothering to maintain friendships. It was as though the fat had become a shield around me, blocking anyone from coming close. I didn’t buy clothes or makeup because there was no point, no one would ever see me.

I hadn’t realized how depressed I had come.

I simply wasn’t living my life. I was afraid of the world seeing me as a wreck, so I avoided the world. I put no effort into my appearance, and it had an effect on the rest of my life – I gave up making an effort in living. I had to make a change.

This entire year has been an effort in losing weight, living better and doing things.

I’m not there yet, but I’ve lost 20 lbs so far this year. I did my first 5k, and I have another one coming up in October. I somehow (and I do think this was magic) fit into my wedding dress that was fitted for me when I was 130lbs.

I’m going to continue to lose weight, work out, and live life. I’m going to lose another 20 lbs before Christmas.

I will share my recipes, menu plans, and workouts too!