The Story...

 Ok so Operation All In Stride Revive has commenced.  I thought that the best way to get back involved is to just tell my story on how I went from couch potato to granola girl in  just a few years.  It is a longer than usual post but just in case anyone needed an extra push....here goes....

I didn't start out chunky.  I wasn't a chunky kiddo or anything.  I rounded out at around a size 8, not abercrombie size 8, REAL size 8 ha!  In my 20's I just kept gaining weight hand over fist.  5lbs here turned into 25, turned into 100, turned into me weighing in at over 300 pounds by my 27th birthday.  (*gasps are ok, I could barely write that with out gasping myself.)  I hadn't really hit a rock bottom moment, I had already had several (airplanes, rollercoaster, booths in restaurant)  rock bottoms and so I was just circling the bottom.  I had no idea how to change.  I mean us "fat people" we know what to do, eat less move more blah blah, but how do you untrain your brain to do something you've conditioned it to do?  I had no clue how to stop...

August 2006, just before 27th birthday I quit eating meat.  There was an incident that just turned me off of meat for about a week.  I noticed in that week I didn't eat at fast food at all, I couldn't really get anything.  That didn't mean that I didn't still eat my butterfinger bar or any of the other junk that I regularly consumed as a "sugar junkie" but I was aware of a small change which made me think maybe I could make other small changes.  I kept up the vegetarian lifestyle and then in October 2006 joined the YMCA.  I started small and did water aerobics a few times a week.  I still ate like crap but less fast food and more moving got me down just below 300 by the first of the year. 

In January of 2007 I started a Biggest loser competition and lost 40 more pounds between Jan and May.  At this point I was eating much healthier by counting weight watchers points.  Then in June I went to the Ukraine to work with 5 orphanages.  I was expecting to have an uplifting trip but instead I felt crippled.  It was so sad and so cumbersome that I think I just let that emotional hold I had on my food go when I got back.  I didn't realize it at the time but I think that I just gave up.  So for the rest of 2007 I "fell off the wagon" as they say and managed to gain 25 lbs back of the 40 I lost. 

Wake up call January 2008.  I finally had enough.  I went full tilt into the weight loss zone.  I lost nearly 75lbs over that year and got into a great fitness routine and really stuck to everything.  I cut out fast food, alcohol (bless me!), and eating out for the first 2 months of the year.   I kept up the no fast food and no alcohol until the summer.  Even now I rarely eat fast food.  I see it as chemicals and poison (which is basically is) and that makes it easier to pass up.  I can't say I dont have the occasional bean burrito or McDs french fry but I can count on 1 hand how many times I ate fast food in 2009....went from 2 meals a day to 5 meals a YEAR...

Now 2009 was a tough year.  Best year for me physically but worst for weight loss.  Most people go through plateaus for a month or maybe two...I did for 10 straight months.  I gained and lost the same 5lbs over 10 months and I was beyond frustrated.  I was eating right, exercising 6 days a week.  I trained and competed in my first Triathlon Sprint and from what I could gather doing everything necessary to get some of this weight off.  I was so frustrated I tried everything from getting bloodwork at the Dr (it was fine)  to tracking every thing (sodium, carbs, sugars, calories) I put in my mouth to accupuncture (not recommended by me.)  In October my bossy best friend bought me buy one get one free month to go to Weight Watchers for real with her.  I was skeptical because I felt a little "beyond" what they could do for me....SO wrong.  Whatever I did started working and by the end of the year I started losing again...12 pounds.  Didn't seem like much to the naked eye but man those were so welcomed considering I managed to only lose 15 for the entire year last year.  I am now paying for WW on my own and it appears to still be working.  Oh and in January 2009 I started working for the YMCA as a water fitness instructor.  I figured it would be good to try and give back to the program that got me started.  I still teach, and love it!

So 2010 I'm still losing, SLOWLY, but surely.  I try and do about a pound a week if I'm lucky.  I am still a modified vegetarian (eating some fish when I need extra proteins) and still avoid fast food like it is chemical poison.  I work out at least an hour 6 days a week, most days it is more like 2.  And because ALL because of getting back in touch with our beloved Sarah B, I'm training for the Derby City Mini on April 24th and signed up for my first triathlon (sprint)  of 2010 in March.  I am slowly becoming the girl I have always wanted to be...healthy, fit, and happy.  I don't think I would have appreciated my health as much had I not had a serious battle to get here but I really don't recommend doing it my way.  Get up, get moving, and get healthy because life is so much better where I'm standing because of that. 

Lately I've been obsessed with a singer, song writer - Brandi Carlile.  She's like Johnny Cash and Patsy Cline had a rock n roll baby (ha) and I love her.  Her song, The Story, will be playing when I cross the finish line at the mini marathon because it reminds me of all of those who've inspired me and keep me going and grounded on a daily, monthly, yearly basis....now I just hope this helps inspire someone else....If I can do it, anyone can.


THE STORY: BRANDI CARLILE