So, I’m always
hesitant to post things about weight or my personal weight loss struggles and
victories on social media. Frankly, it’s because I’m embarrassed… No one else
in my life put unhealthy foods in my life or told me to stay on the couch when
I should have worked out, I did and didn’t do those things. I’ve struggled with
my weight ever since I can remember and its been a 20+ year struggle. Sometimes
I’m more comfortable and confident in myself no matter what my weight, I base
that on my health and fitness level, other times I see nothing positive in the
way I look. I have baffled countless doctors who tell me that they have no idea
how I can be so active and still struggle with weight. Blood tests, metabolism
tests, nutritionists, personal trainers, therapists… I’ve done pretty much
everything and have had some great success with those things, but I’ve never
reached a point where I have been happy. I struggle with an up and down
rollercoaster, I’ll go from incredibly motivated and focused to completely
demoralized and hopeless. Well, my weight has once again taken a front row seat
in my mind. I am incredibly frustrated. I’ve run one marathon and training for
another and yet I feel like I’m constantly defending my athleticism because I
don’t think I look like an athlete. Granted it is actually difficult to loose
weight while training for a marathon, you require an insane amount of energy,
and that comes from food. Now, I eat the healthy types of fuel but still,
calories are calories. It is because of that that I can get away sometimes with
eating more than I should, but I also train hard.
Alright, so
enough of that… here’s the deal. I’m ready to make the changes I need to to
finally do this thing. I’ve tried for a long time not to set weight loss goals
for certain amounts of time because the disappointment was always too much when
I would eventually fail. So I’ve realized that I need to start putting my goals
out there because I need support, as much as I hate to admit it, I can’t do
this by myself. Essentially I have to do it by myself, but I need to include
the people I love in this whole plan because whether I succeed or fail I have
to be held accountable and sometimes I’m way too easy on myself.
So, here’s
my goal… when I was at my heaviest, at the end of my freshman year of college,
I was 267 lbs. Today (7/25) I am 203 lbs. I used to say I would be happy if I
could get down to 180, but not anymore… I am now aiming for 167. That would be
100lbs down from my heaviest weight and I think I would be really happy to get
down to that point and stay there. I think I would finally feel like the person
I’ve been the whole time. Overall that’s losing 36 pounds. For me that is a
HUGE goal, it takes me forever just to lose 10 lbs. But, here we go… I’m giving
myself six months. I’m starting today but I know that losing weight while
marathon training is not just hard but not exactly a good idea to cut
significant calories. So after I run the marathon the main focus will be weight
loss, and with the support of my friends and family, I’m going to do it.
 |
| This is me in the summer of 2006 at 267lbs I am never going back to that again. |
