My Story

Growing up I was a very active kid and teenager. I played soccer, danced and was a cheerleader in high school. Those active habits gave me the ability to be able eat whatever I wanted without even thinking about it. Even though I would never have considered myself thin, I was never fat either. Let’s just say I was average and I was happy at that. Even the first years of college, thanks to a free gym membership and some dance classes, I was able to live the college lifestyle without much thought to what the scale would say.

It was senior year of college that the clothes I had still been wearing since high school were starting to feel a little tighter. Then, when I graduated in 2007 and began a desk job I found myself deleting more and more pictures of myself. I could definitely start to see the changes, whether I believed it or not.

I was never a fan of the scale, I couldn’t even tell you what I weighed when I graduated college, but the more I saw a difference in my appearance the more afraid I was to step on one. In January 2008 reality began to set in during my annual doctor’s appointment. At this point I was forced to look at the scale and I was not happy with what I saw. The scale hovered around 149 lbs. Tears began fill my eyes as I stood on the scale staring at the number. At only a height of 5’4” 149 officially put me in the ‘overweight’ category. In fact it was so close to an even scarier number (150) that I began to hyperventilate. This is what I like to call my breaking point. After drying my tears and stepping off the scale I knew I had to make a change.

I started off slowly by simply removing things from my diet that I knew had to go. Most notable were my daily cherry soda fixes and the office birthday cake that seemed to appear everyday (I’m still in amazement how there could literally be a birthday in the office every day). From there I began to run a little bit each night, I started to add work out DVDs to my Netflix queue and little by little I started to see a difference. My clothes began to actually fit me and at one point I knew I was on to something so I dove a little deeper.

I began to read food labels and discovered the numerous healthy living blogs out there. Those blogs were my lifesavers! They taught me that what I was going through wasn’t merely a diet, but a lifestyle change that would change me for the better. I learned treats were ok and that I didn’t have to run a marathon every single day. I had found a cyperspace community that understood what I was going through when no one else did.

I had originally set my goal to lose 20 pounds. I just picked a number that seemed pretty reasonable. In May of 2008 I am happy to announce I reached my goal and celebrated with a whole new wardrobe! I still stick with the same healthy habits I developed while trying to lose weight except now I am doing it just to stay healthy and feel better about my life. I have lost a good 5 more pounds since I reached my goal and I am very happy with the way I look and feel. While losing weight I discovered my passion for running and now I run 3-4 miles most days before breakfast. I can’t imagine life without running and do not know how I survived without it.

I have learned so much from the blog community that I wanted to give back a little back in return which is why I started my blog. I know there are so many people out there like me who graduated college, started working full time at a desk and just lost touch on how to still live an active life while working eight hours a day. I want to show how I balance my life to help others balance theirs. I am not an expert in anyway, I just know what works for me. Thank you so much for reading my blog and giving me a reason to stay happy, active and healthy!