I think it is time to try and get this blog up and going again! The past three years since my father passed away has been met with many challenges. Starting with breaking up with my boyfriend of 5 years in April of 2009. Emotionally it devastated me, physically it took a toll on me. The depression set in and took hold… And by the end of 2009 I had ballooned to 249 lbs. Knowing that my father passed away from health complications brought on by not taking care of himself, the day I stepped on the scale and saw 249, I knew I was in trouble and headed down that same path if I didn’t do something!

That day came February 21, 2010… It was a wakeup call! I was unemployed, depressed, feeling completely lost and hopeless. I was struggling to keep up on my bills and trying desperately not to loose my house. I had been paying for my membership to the gym for years but never really made use of it… As my ex and I always referred to it, it was our Fat Tax. Well, this morning I woke up with a fire inside me that drove me to the gym! I tried my hand at the weight machines, but it was depressing me as I felt like I didn’t know what I was doing… My friend, Jason, who is a personal trainer and Group X instructor at 24 Hour Fitness told me to give their Group X classes a chance… The next day I came in and gave Bodypump a try (Think aerobic paced weight lifting, high reps low weight choreographed to high energy music). I won’t lie, it kicked my ass and I didn’t think I wanted to do it.

I hurt head to toe like never before in my life (I had never really considered myself athletic by any means) but I got the guts up and came back the next day and tried spinning class. I was hooked, the group class is all different levels of experience. People there for the first time, and others who have done it for years… I liked the fact that I had watching to make sure my form was right, and I didn’t feel the intimidation I felt out on the floor with the machines where I felt like I was always being starred at and judged. I never felt the judgement in the Group X classes.

After 3 months of getting myself in almost daily, I was starting to have results, I had lost 30 lbs! Then I hit the plateau… I went another 3 months at that weight and couldn’t move past it. Jason told me to give the Bodybugg a try. This is a device worn on the upper arm that monitors your body and keeps track of the calories burned. This in combination with keeping track of my daily food intake on the web helped me to figure out just how to keep my eating deficit where it needed to be to loose the weight again! It worked and over the next few months, I shed another 20 lbs. This took me under 200 lbs for the first time since Jr. High!

By this time, I had found a job, and was managing to keep up at the gym… Then my car had problems and I was without it for 6 weeks… This fueled the last 15 lbs I needed to lose to get to my goal of 185 lbs. I started biking to work, 24 miles a day round trip for 6 weeks… My body started a major transition from fat to muscle at this time, and I went from wearing XL shirts to mediums and a 38″ waist when I started to a 32″ waist by October of 2010! Since that time I have been in maintaining mode… I still keep up on my classes at the gym, and have been a lot more active… In 2011 I accomplished completing 3 Ironmans at the gym in a 6 week period, went on to complete the MS Bike 150, The Warrior Dash, Hiked 3 14′rs as well as getting up to ski quite regularly!

There has been lots of problems that have come along over the past few years… I seem to have a curse that if something bad is going to happen it does, however, the one thing that I have managed to control is my health… I have days where emotionally all the bad stuff makes it hard to go on, but somehow I manage to not let it get me down… I still am working on my self esteem, as I still see the big me in the mirror at times… I know it’s psychological and I am working at it, but it takes time. I hope that I can inspire others out there to, as the Nike motto say, Just Do It! You won’t regret it and your body will thank you!

The biggest thing I can say is that setbacks will happen, it’s a given… Losing my job last August definitely challenged me, but with 2012 being here, and a new job, a great group of friends in my life, and even a new boyfriend, I have started the new year off with a renewed sense of hope, and am working on the post holiday gain that happened.. I have set the goal to complete 4 Ironmans this year at the 24 Hour Fitness contest. I am well on my way to completing the second one, with plenty of time to get the other 2 done before February 15th! I will continue to post my progress!

After years and years of not wanting a tattoo… This past couple year’s challenges and accomplishments has made me change my mind. To celebrate loosing 50+ lbs and getting back under 200 lbs for the first time since like elementary school, I decided to mark the occasion with a tattoo that I have designed.

It’s a rough interpretation of an eye to represent having my eyes opened to what is possible when I stop saying I can’t accomplish something or I’m to afraid to try because I might not be good at it. I have learned that it feels great to ignore the fear and just do it… Like the pain of getting the tattoo… The final outcome is worth a bit of being uncomfortable, because the pain goes away, but the beauty remains.

I am really learning to find the positive in a bad situation… While not having my car this past month has sucked, biking to work has been great for my health, and getting to my goal weight faster.

And with my favorite time of year just around the corner, things have to start looking up!

As if the iPhone couldn’t do enough already, here is a cover of MGMT’s Kids. All the instruments are different apps available for the iPhone. Amazingly, it sounds pretty cool. Give it a listen!