Thank you!

Thank you all for your love and support. It is those encouraging words that keep me going sometimes. As well as your encouraging words to others that help them keep going also. You never really realize how much you may touch someones lives with the words you say, or the kind things that you do.

Growing up I never really had to worry about what I ate or if I did or didn't exercise. I was just thin and active, for the most part. I enjoyed backpacking, I enjoyed doing things with friends, I enjoyed taking hikes I enjoyed pretending to play volley balll. I was just a happy busy kid.  I wish life could stay stressfree and carefree!! You remember the good old days.. Staying up late, sleeping in, hanging out with friends and the most stressful thing was your curfew not being late enough, or what you were going to wear... Joseph and I got married when I was 20, yes young I know... The first year of marrige was rough... Like it is for many! But we were in love and comfortable.. We were content just basking in the love we had for eachother. Watching movies till all hours, eating out just really probably not making healthy choices. I was on the pill, we had moved to South Carolina and I never knew I had allergies until I moved there. Wow! did they kick my butt... I went in to the doctor like a year  after we had been married and I was complaining to the dr that I had gained 30 lbs. I thought it was the pill... The dr convinced me that the Depovera shot had much less side effects and weight gain. So, being the trusting woman that I was I didn't go home and do any research... BAD IDEA!!! 60lbs in less then a year!!! not good at all, and to top it off. A.) It was difficult to get it off and B.) I really had no idea how to even diet. Well, over the next few years I waxed and weined with my weight although I don't think I actually got over 200 until I was pregnant with my first. Dear sweet Andrew, yes I actually thought that I did need to eat for two.. 60lbs later I delivered my 9lb baby at 236lbs myself... I was 206 by my six week checkup and I was really swollen so I like to believe that half of that 60 was water weight..
We moved to Texas 2000.. A short time after that I joined a gym. I was right under 200. I started going to the gym with a good friend. I lost some but not as much as I would like. It was off and on dedication during that time. Although I enjoyed going to the gym with my peeps I really had no other goals except to lose weight. Life happens, friends move on.. habits get broken. Thats what happens when your heart isn't in it all the way. A few years later I joined another gym.. I found another dear friend we worked out together, she taught me so much and really gave me the knowledge and confidence to start running or jogging... I learned how to lift weights, learned the Galloway methood of running and I was going to run a marathon, it was a good goal... Well here comes the next discourgement, the marathon we were going to do was lottery, and then I injured my leg one day on our long run.. The final was she told me they were moving away! This was very tramatic for me.. I felt that I had already lost my friend and then within the next  short amount I was losing my other best friend. My support and confidance left me... depression set in... life happened.. Jobs changed, jobs lossed, jobs changed... Food was becoming more and more my vice to make it through the day. Exercising was totally out the window and all I wanted to do was eat.. A short time before we moved to Maryland I got back on track and got down to 207 then we moved, then yep you guessed it... Depression... Bingeing... food was all I had, or so I thought. I was letting food take over my life.. it was the only thing that seemed to make me happy. It was a way to make me feel better.. but in the end all it did was make me feel worse. Which brings me to where I am today... 23lbs lighter then my heaviest!!! and still making changes every day.

A quote that was on a friends FB page yesterday was fantastic! I don't remember the author but the qoute said:
Motivation gets you going, Habit keeps it up..

I would like to now think that I have created a habit for life. I love the feeling I have while exercising-well after exercising and love that the scale continues to go down.
HUGS-
ME