About Me

About Me and My Journey 

My life and family

I am first and foremost a mother to two amazing children, a girl and a boy. They are 11 years apart and it has been an adjustment around here for sure. I also have an amazing husband of over 20 years. I work in accounting at the hospital and really enjoy my line of work. It takes a rare breed of people who enjoy accounting, thats for sure. You have to be a bit anal and maybe a little OCD. Like I said, perfect for me.

My weight begins to climb

I was relatively small as a child but developed quickly. By the fifth grade I was as filled out women with curves. From 5th grade on I struggled with weight gain. I started to do fad diets, but because they were fads, and not a healthy way of life, I continually failed.

After I got married the weight just seemed to keep climbing. They say thats I sign of being happy and content in a marriage. Why did I have to be so happy! The happiness showed all over my hips. Then after I had my daughter I hit an all time high of over 200 pounds. My husband went through great measures to make me feel happy and content in my own skin but I was miserable. I remember shopping for clothes and nothing fit. I even bought a sewing machine figuring I would have to start making my own clothes. Huge fail by the way.

Bring on the fads

I continued on a whole list of diets from there: Phen Phen, Atkins, saw a specialist that put me on 600 calories a day and would literally swear at me when I didn't lose weight. It was just miserable.

The weight starts to come off

I sought out medical help and dropped the majority of the weight. I settled between a size 10-12. After being a size 18-20 it felt pretty darn wonderful. I was pretty happy and content with this for years and then saw of photo of myself. The jeans that I was currently wearing were a 12, I was slowly putting a little weight back on and was not happy with what I saw. A size 12 is not big on everyone but on my 5'2 frame it was just too big and more importantly I wasn't comfortable.

The power of exercise

At this point I took up exercising. I started to run and bike primarily. I loved it and it felt empowering! But I live in Minnesota and it gets cold here. So slowly my workouts dwindled. I still occasionally exercised mind you, but not enough to make a real difference.

Fast forward a few years to when I had my son (see post below). I was about 25 pounds over my healthy weight and was sick of those pesky few last pounds. I joined Weight Watchers and had huge success on the program. I took the weight off in about 4 months. But I was so "soft", "saggy", and very much not toned.

I heard about this tough workout program called Insanity and absolutely loved it. I saw a my body change very quickly. Im not going to lie, it was very hard. Then I moved on to T25, I loved this even more. It was similar to Insanity but was only 25 minutes long. I then went on to purchase and do several more programs and the majority of them were Beachbody. Then I started hearing about these Beachbody challenges, so I joined one, and I really loved that! It's basically an accountability group. I felt part of a special group working together to achieve better, healthier bodies. I now drink Shakeolgy as well (read my experience under that tab). I was not so sure about it at first, but no lie I now drink it every day.

I now find myself going up and down 5-10 pounds. I plan to continue on my journey in hopes maintaining my weight loss, taking off a few more pounds, and continuing to grow as a person.  I will never be that 200 pound plus girl again.  I deserve better for myself and so do you!