How it all started......

Hey Everyone! Welcome to my new blog about becoming and living HEALTHY!

(On the left was a photo of me at 211 pounds) More photos to come!

I have struggled with my weight my entire life. Even when I was young I was horribly teased for my weight. I don't think I was obese but I wasn't a skinny rail. With so many insecurities over myself I turned to food, drugs and alcohol. Mostly, I turned to food. That would comfort me at least that's what I thought.

I'd even feel like I was on a high when I'd binge eat. As soon as I ate a ton of food, I'd feel better for only a short time. It was an addiction.

I have been through many things in life from sexual abuse, abusive boyfriends, alcoholics in my family, life was very stressful.

I was married in 2001 to my amazing husband. We had known each other for 9 months when we got married. Life was rough our first year. Maybe it's because we were still getting to know each other and the fact that I had some extreme insecurities from being sexually abused and I absolutely hated the way I looked. I took it out on my husband by being incredibly controlling and angry.

When I was married I think I weighed around 160 but I was completely not in shape and was wearing a size 14. I went on depo prover a shot so you do not get pregnant and I tell you I shot up about 50 pounds in a two month period.

My highest weight ever was 218 and I am only 5'2". I was in a size 20 pant and talk about being extremely depressed.

This was several years later.. We were trying to get pregnant and nothing. I decided to start working out because that 218 pounds was looming over me. I felt like a failure because I wasn't able to get pregnant. I started to lose weight. I lost 40 pounds and BAM I got pregnant!

We had our first child in 2006. When you are a new mom the last thing you want to do is exercise. Your exhausted. I only gained 10 pounds during my pregnancy... crazy I know!! but after I had my daughter I put so much weight ON because I felt starving all the time nursing.

Just thru life I started to gain again. It wasn't too bad though.. I still was in about a size 14/16. I figured life was just going to be this way and to deal with it.

We had been wanting another baby so I started to lose some weight. I don't remember how much but not enough for it to be significant for me to remember. But we got pregnant and it was a huge surprise.

At first, I was like what I'm pregnant? I felt horribly guilty over those thoughts because when I was 13 weeks along I found out my baby didn't have a heartbeat. I was absolutely devastated. If you are a photographer like me and you know me I'm sure you know my story.

I went thru two years of EXTREME depression. I put work in front of my family to cope. I couldn't even be around my husband for at least a year. I was distant. I was horribly depressed. And what did I do to cope?? I ate and I ate and I ate.

It took me a good two years to get over the loss of our child. I know every woman deals with it differently and I respect that. I thought I was a huge failure. I analyzed every single detail of what I did those 13 weeks that I was pregnant to see what I had done wrong.

I started to feel better after my two year anniversary. I met one of my best friends and we went flew out to Utah to have a get together with some of my best girlfriends who had been thru miscarriages as well.

I started to heal but I had put on so much weight I weighed 211 pounds. I saw that on my scale and thought wow, I never want to get up to 218 pounds again and I was only 7 pounds away from that.

On my birthday in August, I had an awakening. I am a born again Christian and love the Lord with all of my heart. I felt like the Lord was telling me to lose weight for a good two years. In my prayer time, I'd ask what could I do and I'd only hear lose the weight. I was angry at that. I was offended. I didn't have a weight problem. It was those mirrors! It was something else....

So, sitting at my desk on my birthday probably one of the most depressing birthdays I've ever had I sat there and realized that I was 33 years old and miserable. Jesus was 33 years old when he was crucified on the cross and I thought if I had died that day look and see how awful I looked.

I decided that I wasn't going to live life hating myself anymore. Let me tell you, the voices in my head of hating myself and with such extreme insecurities have been there my entire life. Whenever I'd meet a skinny person, I'd have extreme insecurity etc. It was constant. It never stopped.

I was so tired of that and so fed up with that, that is when I decided to change.

5 days after my birthday I started to work out. I couldn't work out and not eat good. It would defeat the entire purpose and what a waste of time for me to work out and then eat like crap.

This took some major convincing for my husband to change his ways. I am so THANKFUL he decided to get on this with me.

I'm not on any FAD DIET. I have completely changed my LIFESTYLE. What I do is NOT A DIET! I can't look at it that way otherwise, I knew in my mind I would fail. Failure was NOT AN OPTION!!!