Introductions...

       I guess everyone should have a general understanding as to why this blog needs to happen on my part. I am 25 and a half years old. I have an amazing, fantastic husband who I married just 8 short months ago. I have a supportive family who dreams big for me and loves me very much. I am going to school to be a wedding and event planner and hope to start my own company very soon. I have big dreams for my future. There is just one thing standing in my way. Myself.
       I have been overweight most of my life. I didn't really listen to advice from others when I was younger and didn't realize I was expanding daily until middle school. I look back at pictures of myself and remember hearing people tell me how pretty I looked, even though I had a weight problem starting as a young child. I know that I have never believed them, and I will never believe anyone's compliments until I can compliment myself.
       For what seemed like five minutes, I did lose weight and feel happy. Much like my friend Kady, it was when I was a Senior in high school. I met my husband then and we fell in love so fast it would make some outsider's heads spin. After high school, I don't really know what happened to change me back to someone who gains weight daily, but I changed. Whether through depression, stress, lack of self control, or just general laziness, I have gained almost 100 lbs. since then. As embarrassing as that is to put out into the world to be publicly known, I know that if anyone knew me then and knows me now, he/she can SEE those 100 lbs., so why try to hide it? Putting the truth out there just makes me That much more accountable. I am going to lose those 100 lbs. and more, to be healthy, to love myself, and to be able to act my age. That is where the lean body part of my blog lies.
       My husband reminds me daily how much he loves me. He makes me feel like he truly believes I am beautiful. Unfortunately, I will not allow myself to believe his opinion. I know that I am loved, but I don't love myself. How can I listen to someone else tell me I'm pretty when I genuinely believe I am not? My husband is much healthier than I am. He is a runner. I watch him suit up in his sexy running clothes, his fancy running shoes,  grab a gatorade and take off for a run. I see this and feel resentment. Why can he run and I can't bring myself to leave the couch? I know that running is hard, and many extremely fit people can't do it, but this activity is going to become a part of my life. I am going to use running as one of the forms of exercise to change myself, not just for me, but so he and I have one more thing to bond over. That's where the clean run comes in.
        This blog is going to document my journey to change this pattern in my life. This pattern of hating who I am and wishing and planning to change it, then never doing anything about it. I find myself staring at healthy women with an almost drooling sense of adoration. Not because I am attracted to them, but because I look at these "lucky" girls who I see as so beautiful and dream of being one of them. This is where the dream focus comes from. I want to be a typical 25 year old woman. I want to feel comfortable in my own skin. I want to love myself.  I want to wake up everyday and not wonder if my weight has caused diabetes, or heart disease or stroke. I want to know that I will be around for my husband, my future children, and my family. This is my dream. Now it is time to fulfill it.
        As embarrassing as all this can seem for me, knowing that anyone can read this information, I know that I will feel better later when I have set myself on the right path. I know that being healthy is a life long journey. I know that I need to be ready to change my life, forever. So to start that out, I will say that I currently weigh 260.3 lbs. There's no way for me to sugar coat that. It's terrible. I would like to weigh 155 lbs. This has been my dream weight since middle school. Currently, I can only run for about 3 minutes, very slow, not even one lap around a track. I want to be able to run a 5K. That's three miles. If my husband can do it, so can I.
      It's not too much to ask of myself to change. I just have to do it. I am going to start by changing my eating habits and building up my run time. Eating less and moving more. I will post weekly to update my weight, run time, and how I am going about making changes. I have already decided to keep my weight posted as my background on my phone, so I see it all the time for quick motivation. Whether the steps be small or large, I will post them on here.
       I hope you enjoy my journey of hardships, pain, and eventual success. After a quarter century of dulling my life with self hate, I've finally decided to become happy with myself and see what life can really be like when I love "me".

Don't Blink, You Might Miss Me.

      I have had this blog for a LONG time now, it has seen MANY renovations and restarts over that time, and as of late I had all but given up on using this source as a resource to express myself and what I am going to go through. That all changed in a moment. Here's how.
      The story actually starts about 7 years ago, just before I graduated high school. I met someone who made me feel like there were just genuinely awesome people in the world (other than my perfect boyfriend/eventual husband), and it was what I would consider friendship at introduction. This person is my friend, Kady Sanchez. I barely knew her and already felt like I had met one of the best people I'd ever meet in my life. I found myself thinking that she and I had SO much in common, but what I soon realized was that I found in her the things I only wished I could see in myself. We have maintained a long distance type friendship over the past 7 years and she even drove across the state to come to my and my husband's wedding! I look at Kady as a role model (even if we are the same age),a source of inspiration to be a better me, and she has just recently inspired me again.
      This is where my blog change idea comes in. Kady just started a new blog that totally threw me for a loop and told me it's time to get up off of my butt and get going. Kady's blog, "Here Today & Gone Tomorrow", is about her personal journey to lose weight and build up her self love, esteem, and confidence. I read her first entry and found myself in tears. I realized that she and I have something huge in common, something that I never thought she would ever have a problem with at all. We both don't really like ourselves. She calls her dislike "self-loathing," and I know exactly what she means. I look at her and think, how could she be feeling what I feel every day? How could this person who brings such joy to my life, when all I did was read her facebook status for the day, possibly feel a small amount of the negativity towards herself that I feel every minute? Then for me to continue reading her posts and see that not only do we have the dislike for ourselves in common, but we also have the same downfalls when it comes to change, it tells me one thing. If Kady, being as awesome as she is from what I see, can feel on the inside how I feel about myself and find a way to bring herself to change it all, so can I.
         So there it is. The reason for what will be a sudden influx of activity on this old blog. I hope Kady doesn't mind me using part of her story, (Kady if you read this and don't like it, please tell me, I will take it down yesterday.), and her blog idea as motivation to change myself. I read her entries and find myself inspired, motivated, and empowered.
        If me reading her blog helps me change, then maybe if someone reads my blog they will be inspired too. So here goes nothing and everything all at once. I know it will be hard. I know I will want to quit. I know that I will probably have times where I pretend not to care, but I will not back down this time. I will be accountable now, because I know that out there there is someone who I think is absolutely awesome going through the same struggles as me.


Everyone should read Kady's blog:

http://kadyisleaving.blogspot.com/2012/02/introduction.html