Change.

"One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began." -Mary Oliver

I'm posing with my daughter, Sophie. 2016

                 I will be twenty seven this year, and I have never been fit. Never. I played softball for a while in high school, but I wasn’t very good and some of my teammates were kind of mean, so I gave up pretty quickly. I always danced in school, but even then I wouldn’t consider myself fit. I was much healthier than I am now, but overall I was still weak, and I’ve never been able to run a full mile.

              In December of 2013, I gave birth to my daughter, Sophie. Having Sophie was, without question, the greatest moment of my life (and by moment, I mean 14 hours). But while I was pregnant, I grew, and grew, and grew. I was inactive and always hungry. A week or two after I gave birth, I weighed myself. This was, without question, the most depressing moment of my life. Within those nine months, I had gained sixty pounds. This was in addition to the twenty or thirty pounds I gained throughout my college years.

              I had a plan to lose this weight. I was going to start running. Months came and went and I still hadn’t trained for the 5K I signed up for when I was still pregnant. When May arrived, so did the 5K. I started the race by running, but my body could not physically propel itself forward. I didn’t realize just how out of shape I really was. I ran (walked) this 5K with some family members, and we took celebratory jumping pictures after the run (walk). I have been doing jumping pictures since I was a teenager. But I couldn’t jump high enough off the ground to get captured in the photograph in the air. My leg muscles weren’t strong enough.

              I also had a difficult time getting off the floor from the sitting position or sitting straight up from lying down. My muscles had gone so long without being used and I was physically too weak to do things as simple as getting up or jumping. I was terribly embarrassed by this and a little depressed. I knew I had to do something.

              In 2014 I lost about thirty pounds from nursing my daughter, going to the gym

Right Photo: Me at my largest size in early 2014.
Left Photo: Me after losing 50 lbs at the end of 2015.

sporadically, and eating slightly better. But I was still very unhealthy and not nearly active enough. In 2015 I lost twenty more pounds. I had finally developed a consistent workout routine and was logging the food I was eating on MyFitnessPal, a great app that opened my eyes to how much sugar I was eating, even when I thought I was eating fairly well.

              Toward the end of 2015 I started to fall off the wagon again. I quit my job that was unfulfilling and causing me great anxiety. I couldn’t get a new job in Syracuse, no matter how many resumes I submitted, which wasn’t exactly a confidence booster. When I finally got a job offer, it was in my hometown, causing us to sell our house and move three hours away from Syracuse, back to Pennsylvania. During this time, my childhood home also burned down. All of these happenings caused great stress in my life, and became huge excuses for me to not workout and eat like an animal. By the end of 2015, I was a total of fifty pounds down from the time I had Sophie, but I was still extremely unhealthy and unfit.

              Now, I’m going on the third month of 2016. I have fit nicely into a new job in my hometown and have two amazing friends, with whom I work at the university in Mansfield and who continuously motivate me in my health and fitness journey. Now, I’m only about two weeks into a consistent workout schedule and have been eating pretty well.

              I am doing my best to create this new, healthy lifestyle for myself without following programs, purchasing special products, or adhering to crash diets. I just want to eat healthy and exercise, and I want it to become a part of my life. I don’t mean to diminish special programs that have worked really well for many people I know. I have great respect for what my healthy friends are doing. In fact, many of them have been a driving motivation for me on my own journey. I just want to see if I can do this without a program. That doesn’t mean I will always be opposed to them. But for now, I’m trying to do things a little differently.

              For 2016, I have only lost about 5 pounds so far, but this is just the beginning. This blog is to serve as a motivational guide for myself and others where, hopefully, friends and readers will share tips or suggestions from their own healthy living experience. I want to share my journey, since it is a significant goal for me to  lose about 45 more pounds, run a 5K by the end of the year, and feel stronger and healthier overall. I plan to post biweekly on Sundays, and possibly more frequently if I feel exceptionally motivated. I look forward to sharing my stories with you. Thank you for joining me on this journey!