This was me in June 2014 And this is me now
I feel like I need to share this, but I didn't want to put it on Facebook. I really didn't realize how big I am until I had my husband take this picture for me. Obviously, from the title of this blog, you can tell that weight is one of my biggest struggles. When I started this blog in 2011 I just kind of gave up again shortly after my last post and never wrote anything else because it was just disappointing. Then, in April of 2012, I moved in with the amazing Teresa Allen. She was also struggling with her weight and became borderline Type 2 Diabetic. Her brother wanted to help her and when he heard about this new program called Utah Weight Loss he asked her if she would be interested in starting it.
This program changed my life. At first the weight fell off slowly. Then, before I realized it I was down to almost 200 lbs. I hadn't weighed so little since high school. Also, in June of 2013 I started going to the gym at EXL Fitness 
and met Kyle Boyce.
Combining eating strict, prescribed meals and twice a week cardio/weight training really made the pounds fall off, and before I knew I looked like that girl holding the fish. I felt amazing. I could run (most of the way) around the building the gym was in, I could climb Mt Timpanogos and make the 1-3rd graders I was taking on a field trip try and keep up with me!
and met Kyle Boyce. Combining eating strict, prescribed meals and twice a week cardio/weight training really made the pounds fall off, and before I knew I looked like that girl holding the fish. I felt amazing. I could run (most of the way) around the building the gym was in, I could climb Mt Timpanogos and make the 1-3rd graders I was taking on a field trip try and keep up with me!
One thing you find when you lose all the weight you realize it's not just holding you down physically, it is also holding you down mentally. You don't feel good enough, you feel like people look at you and laugh. When I look at the picture of me standing there with my giant bottom half I feel like I need to apologize to all the people that have to look at that every day. You feel uncomfortable when trying to squeeze into small seats on planes, trains, and even some automobiles, in rides at amusement parks, in theaters, in just trying to squeeze past past on the street or a crowd anywhere. You worry if more than a couple people get into an elevator if you are pushing it over the weight limit. Clothes shopping is never fun. Styles suddenly change over about size 16. Suddenly it's like, "well you won't look good in anything anyway, so why try to make it look cute?" or if it is then you'll have to pay at least $30-$40 just for a T-shirt somewhere like Lane Bryant or Torrid. After a while, food just seems like an escape. You are giant anyway, so why worry if you're eating twice as much as you should be in a meal?
I just felt trapped when I was fat, and I still do now. In the summer of 2014 I met James Griffith and we started dating. When you date, you eat out, and it's not always easy to choose the best food when you eat out. I fell in love and we decided to get married. We got married on November 22, 2014.
Shortly before that, I decided I couldn't afford to go to the gym anymore, my credit card was maxed out. I also was getting really tired of the bland limited options they had at Utah Weight Loss so I stopped doing that as well. I noticed almost immediately after going back to eating normal American cuisine that the weight started coming back. To be honest, marriage is not always easy. When you are the mothering second oldest child and you marry the baby of the family with his father's explosive temper life can be very depressing sometimes. I'm pretty sure I just ate my frustration, discouragement, and depression. Don't get me wrong. There have been great, wonderful moments. We have learned from each other and grown closer together. Unfortunately, I am now heavier than I have ever been in my life, topping the scales at 330 lbs.
A little over a week ago I started a new "lifestyle" called OptaVia. It's very similar to the Utah Weight Loss program, except there are even less options, the food tastes worse, and you get to eat much less of it than you could with the Utah Weight Loss, or "Shake the Weight". As I contemplated starting this new lifestyle it must have helped me to be more focused on what I was eating because I actually got down 319 lbs before I officially started with OptaVia. Since starting the plan I have lost 10 more pounds. I tried the program for about a month. I don't know if I could make it last very long. It's really more than I can pay for food for me on top of food for my husband. I also have to provide either one or two "Lean and Green" meals a day for myself where I have to weigh out my meat and measure my vegetables. That is also pretty much all I can eat, is fruits and vegetables; no bread, no fruit, at least I can have cheese.
Hopefully this will kind of kick start me, if nothing else, on a healthier lifestyle and better decision making when it comes to food choices. I also started a new gym experience with Limitless Athletics https://www.limitlessathleticsutah.com/. They are offering a free 21 day Transformation Program where I can go 8 classes for free and I get to meet with the coach every couple weeks to see how things are going. So far they aren't going very far. I have been to Zumba class twice and love it! It's just really hard to fit in classes with my schedule and James' schedule, then last week that monthly monster came and dragged me down so I didn't go to any other classes. I'll have to make it up over the next few weeks. They also offered recipes and a list of foods I can eat and how much of each, pretty much the same as the "Lean and Greens" of the OptaVia plan. Hopefully I will continue the steady crawl down the scale. Wish me luck!
