All change begins somewhere. Every story involving weight loss revolves around a turning point. A spark, a rush of momentary insanity, or simply becoming exhausted of what you’ve grown accustomed to. As I’ve come to find, all of us have a sense of inner dissatisfaction – our generation itself is constantly consumed with finding the next thing to occupy our attention. In most of the stories I’ve heard, it involved children and being there for their future or playing with them in some sort of rigorous cardio-induced exercise. Others have been for the aesthetic values, which, let's face it, we’re all guilty of wanting. For some, and most especially my case, it was a distinct night in February of 2013, when I was making one of my first dinners on my own for friends. Excitedly, I had planned out a whole meal and timed everything perfectly to sit down at my folding card table in my first ever apartment at twenty-five years old. It was unbeknownst to me that the next moments would be so crucial in my following years.
A friend took a photo of me in front of the stove to commemorate the meal as our rite of passage, and got multiple photos. For me, what I saw was a wake-up call...
You don’t notice it each day you see yourself, honestly… as I’m sure most of you know if you’ve dealt with the same thing. You have this image in your head of how you look and what your body feels like, and it take something like my photo did for me to truly wake you up. It was then that I decided to make life changes. Officially weighing in at 265lbs in my first Weight watchers meeting in ten years, I felt a sense of ‘this time it’s going to work – this time, I’ll get it done’ wash over me. To say that I've always struggled with my weight would sound cliche and repetitive, but it’s the truth. I wasn’t going to let this be my weight into my 20th year, and I’d already failed at that, so my mid to late twenties were a time for significant change.
I spent the next three months on the Weight Watchers plan, thinking that if I could control my portions it would be simple and attainable. I went to a friend’s wedding after losing maybe 6 lbs total, and that’s when the switch flipped. I saw her transformation from 290 lbs to 145 lbs in four years and was absolutely inspired by her own weight loss journey. I knew then that in order to keep going and actually meet my goal, I was going to have to ditch eating crappy foods that fit into my points total for the day, and actually make healthier choices with my eating habits. I signed up for a personal trainer June 6th, 2013 and have been going one to three times a week ever since.
