How to make it all make sense

This post will be almost entirely about my physical back story. I figure that the first post was about my mental and emotional background, why not make another me-centric post to get everyone up to speed on where I am.

This is me, to the left, celebrating the 4th of July in 2009. I'm at my heaviest here in clothes that didn't exactly 'fit correctly'. I was growing out of everything, and I was miserable. I sat down though, to a lovely B-B-Q spread that my parents-in-law put together and I ate. And I ate. And I ate. And I was happy. Holidays only come once a year right?

Only they don't. There seems to be a food-centric holiday every few months. This makes me wonder in this day in age where food is plentiful for most what exactly are we celebrating? The outward spreading of our waistlines, the doubling of our chins, the pair of waggling skin 'wings' beneath our arms, &etc are certainly fantastic additions to any person's body... but why did I keep eating things that I knew were harmful to my health?

Because it was completely socially acceptable, and completely encouraged. When people get together they eat. I don't know why, it's just a fact of most standard North-American families. There's nothing wrong with laughing over dinner, but there's something that isn't funny about crying over the same dinner that night when you're all alone. I look at this picture of me (331lbs) and I feel sad for the old me. Even though I felt sad though, I didn't start working out and making positive changes until almost an entire year later.

The photo to the right is a picture of me taken one day shy of a year later, 4th of July 2010. I've lost a fair bit of weight by this point (306-310 lbs) but I'm still not quite 'there yet' with changing my habits and my lifestyle. I started going to Curves June 2010, and started feeling inspired to get my energy back up. Get to who I knew I can be rather than who I was, and scale be damned - I didn't care if the numbers on that scale went down as long as my stamina and general health improved.

I know all these people who had paid (or are paying) for gym memberships but never actually go. Yet still manage to keep a straight face when they say they eat healthy (while chewing on fast food) and exercise regularly. And I can't feel anything for them but complete and all-encompassing empathy. It's so easy to fall into old habits, to soothe one's self with food, and to say that just because you've got a gym membership that you're actually committed to your health. We've all done it...a Big Mac is much more fun than hitting a treadmill (at first!).

Fast forward to today, and I'm doing this amazing Eat To Live lifestyle change. Lots of raw foods, and new and enticing fruits and veggies. Limited whole grains, and no meat or dairy (not too hard since I was already meat and dairy free). I keep losing weight (278.8lbs) and am still trucking onward.

Above is a compilation of two driver's license photos taken a year apart, and the third a photo snapped recently at a bridal boutique. I think the changes in my face are pretty self-evident and a great testament to the hard work I'm putting in! This'll be the last shameless self plug though, I promise. Other posts will be much less me-centric, I promise.

It's a long hard road, but I guess I'm the only one that can walk it for me..right? The road is made a little harder by the fact that I've never been slim in recent memory. At age 12, in 6th grade, I weighed 180lbs. The reason I remember it so well was having to tell my weight to the man that adjusted the ski's during our 6th grade ski trip. Eesh! Embarrassing.Tomorrow's post will cover some of the delicious scrummies that I've been cooking. My husband, good sport that he is, read Dr. Fuhrman's "Eat to Live" book and decided to join me on this adventure. It's a difficult thing...but I know I'll make it!

Eggs out.