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[lmims]

Hello everybody! My sister turned me onto this a few days ago and I've decided to join! So to start of I thought I would briefly tell you all about my personal life and hobbies. Below is my story, but to quickly summarize I've battled with ED's and have managed to pull through and I have spent the last year losing weight the healthy way. Started out 5' 5" weighing 178 and now I'm 5' 5" and weigh around 135.

 

I'm 20 years old, 21 in November, and I live in Texas. I am a big time fantasy fan and I always have been. I play Pathfinder with my boyfriend and our friends and aside from working two jobs and school that's pretty much all I have time for. I am also in a band in which I am the lead singer, we're called Cecilia if you wanna find us on Facebook, and I also have a solo project where I sing and play the ukulele. It's a lot of fun. I'm majoring in Public Relations with the intention of using that in either the music industry or politics as I am very interested and involved in both!

 

Now, as for my weight loss. I grew up in a loving and supportive family, but one that also REALLY liked to eat. We would go through spurts of being active, playing tennis or swimming a lot, but our eating habits were just absolutely horrible. My entire family was very, very overweight before I was even 10 years old (including myself) and at the time I didn't see anything wrong with it. I was a kid! Of course I didn't! My 8th grade year I watched some videos and read some information about veganism and animal cruelty and it really hurt me. So, that night I cut animal products completely out of my life (although in 5th grade I had already stopped eatining all meat aside from poultry and fish) and it drove my mother crazy. I lost some weight and felt great. At that point I would managed to maintain a weight somwhere between 150-160 for about 3 years.

My junior year of high school I began to obsess about my weight, like most girls, and then developed an eating disorder. I would work out about three times a day and then force myself to eat only 500 calories or less. I lost a lot of weight really fast and then plateaued. Then I got sick with a severe case of mono that actually probably saved my life! While in the hospital my doctor told me that I had to get more protein and other nutrients into my diet or I would continue to decline health wise. I decided that I could continue being vegan and just work harder on getting those nutrients or I could just incorporate organic fish and poultry into my diet. So that's what I did. Allowing for some meat and dairy to come back into my diet made me healthy again....and then slowly very, very unhealthy. I gained about 25 pounds and by the end of my senior year of high school I weighed around 175 (at 5'5") and was pushing 180.

When I started college in the fall I began to workout all the time and forcing myself to starve again thinking that that was the ONLY way to lose the weight. I lost about 15lbs and then gained it back, then I actually did my research. My brother, my best friend, had gotten a gastric sleeve in order to help him lose weight (I think he was somewhere around 400lbs) and he had adopted a healthy lifestyle afterwards. I followed his lead and began forcing myself to eat at least 1200 calories a day and eat back whatever I burned in the gym. After getting tendonitis, I then forced myself to not do two hours on the treadmill every day like I had been doing. I shortened my workouts but made them more intense and increased my calorie intake. I not only lost 15lbs again, but it looked like I'd lost much more and that's when I knew that this was how it had to be!

 

Fast forward a year, it's been a really long struggle full of plateaus and periods of not caring but I've lost about 40lbs and I'm sitting somewhere around 135. I don't weigh in every day or even every week and I cheat from time to time. I am MUCH happier and I believe MUCH healthier. I was wearing a size 14 comfortably last year and now I wear a size 6 petite! I've never been able to fit in petite clothes, but now I have to wear them! It's crazy. It's awesome. It also sucks, because all my friends and family trying to lose weight brag about how well I've done but then will NOT follow my lead. So, I've joined this site to not only motivate myself to hopefully lose another 15lbs and then focus on toning and strength, but to also encourage me to try motivating those around me again that I've given up on. And I put up a picture of my current before/after.

 

[Laureleye]

That is a wonderful turn-around.  I'm glad you joined us here.  Sadly, most people want losing weight to involve some magic formula when it's a matter of eating healthy and being (reasonably) active.  We've got a challenge in progress, but join if you want.  For more info go the the 6 week challenge FAQs. 

[lmims]

I did join the challenge upon request by my sister, but I wasn't sure if jumping in SO late would be okay? I'm also still trying to get used to navigating around on this place!

[Laureleye]

I don't think anyone minds if you join late; just don't give yourself any points for the challenge.  Even if you only have one goal, it will get you rolling.   

[lmims]

Ah! Okay, well, I'm not even sure how the point stuff works so that shouldn't be too hard to avoid.

[China Dan]

I can see how your environment ( growing up in an obese family ) must have been an obstacle on your path to slenderness. Congrats on the transformation. Hope your journey continues to bring you well being and inspire those nearest and dearest to you. P.s. my brothers a bit chubby to I think I'm gonna recommend this site.

[lmims]

It definitely has been! Luckily, a couple of my family members are really trying to change their ways which will hopefully persuade the others! Sometimes just having a community of like minded people you can submerge yourself in really helps you build your goals, so maybe it could really help him out?