Step away from Facebook

In the past year or two I have taken to Facebook to post all about my fitness goals and workouts. I have even gone so far as to post pictures in workout gear and bikinis to track my progress. I realize that 90% of those who I connect with on Facebook don't care about my fitness ambitions and possibly find it annoying. So I am using this blog as an opportunity to track my progress, workouts, answer questions and share with anyone who may be interested without having to post for the world to see.

It's probably best to start at the beginning, long before I thought about working out or even eating health food. Greek yogurt didn't exist growing up. Coke tasted better than diet coke- let alone water! I was always the chubby girl, chubbier sister, and overall bigger than most girls in my school. Until 3rd grade it never bothered me but in 4th grade we moved to an up and coming upper middle class suburban school system and I realized pretty quickly that I wasn't "cool" enough or "cute" enough or "skinny" enough to fit in with the same types of friends I had at my old school. As a result, I would come home from school and eat. Chips, cheese, nachos, any sort of Hostess pastry I could find. Then I would have dinner...and a bedtime snack. Food was always plentiful. In middle school I was easily in the 130's at 5'3". By high school, I never weighed myself but I wore size 15 and while I dated and went to 4 proms was never exactly "popular". The popular girls in my school were the thin cheerleaders that wore cute clothes, drove the nice cars, etc. and while I grew up in one of the nicer neighborhoods-I did not wear cute clothes, drive nice cars, etc.  The underlying issue which is not the point of this blog so will be brief is that I probably wasn't very happy as a teen (My So Called Life anyone?) and so my negativity and rudeness probably created to my not being so popular in high school.
Move on to college and I joined a sorority- on a whim. The houses looked big and I really just wanted to see the inside so I signed up for Rush at a large public school with one of the toughest recruitment processes. I was clueless. I was just going to look at the houses and was going to drop out once my top house cut me- bc really... Me in a sorority? Girls and I didn't exactly get along so I figured to be one of the many who drop out or get cut from all houses. Ha! I. Never. Got. Cut. And with that I joined Alpha Phi. Bid Night I was so excited to go to the house and meet all the new girls. However just like in 4th grade when I went to the new school I realized that I didn't quite fit in. I was one of the chubbier girls- surrounded by beautiful girls- girls whomWERE popular at their high school. During my 2.5 years of living in the house, I lost weight. A lot of weight. I started going to the gym with my sisters and since food wasn't readily available like at my home in high school, it was fairly easy for me to lose weight. At this point all I did was cardio but boy did I do cardio. I would spend 2 hours doing cardio and I know people started to notice. I really noticed when I came back for recruitment my sophomore year. Sisters noticed. In college at 5'5" I would guess I weighed 115. No muscle, just flabby but smaller. During this time I became so obsessed with being small that I sacrificed friendships with my sisters to go to the gym. While I never had an outright eating disorder like anorexia or bulimia, I did have a messed up relationship. I remember one day waiting for a place to park at the SRSC eating Wendy's.... Yes, eating Wendy's before doing 2 hours of cardio...
Fast forward to my 20's and I stayed in the 120's-130's but the closer I got to 30 that number increased to 146, then 150 and the highest I allowed myself to see, 164 at 32. I don't know how high I got while living in Florida, but I was in a horrible relationship with a rather large (300 pounds) man and we would eat often together and then I would eat alone just to numb the pain of a gross relationship.
In June of 2010, I walked up to a trainer at my gym and literally said I am done, I have to lose weight. With that one statement I hired that trainer and he worked my but off for 2 months- and then I moved back to Indiana. In that 2 months I lost 10 pounds and was in the 150's.  From that moment in 2010 to now in 2013 I have lost 30 pounds on the scale and am wearing sizes 4 and 6... Sizes I NEVER wore before.
While this first post was long and boring, I promise the rest will be shorter, more interesting and focus on fitness. However I think that the history is important. Where I am now and where I want to go isn't going to just happen bc of good genes. It will take hard work and clean eating.