We are gettng healthy!

It has been no secret that pretty much my entire life I have personally struggled with my weight.  Something that I've always struggled with even before I can remember and always being bigger than everyone else.  It doesn't help that I have 2 sisters who are built VERY different than me and so I was always compared to them which really just isn't fair.  I have more boobs than the two of them combined and more curves than there bodies would know want to do with!  lol  I mean come on how come I had to get that "lucky"???   I also think it was partially that I was just never taught what healthy eating was and it's really no one's fault because my parents were raised by parents who grew up in the great depression so you NEVER left your plate empty, eating a Big Mac in the 5th or 6th grade was nothing.  Now I think about that and I gag at the thought.  That meal at Mcdonalds is almost 1 days worth of calories and for a child that young that is not healthy at all!! 

Plus in my life I have been through a lot emotional stuff that no child should ever bare on her shoulders and so food became a comfort thing for me, stressed, I eat, worried, I eat, happy I eat....so not good. 

Well in this past 6 months to a year, my weight has really started to effect me.  I would see pictures of myself and I would literally not recognize myself AT ALL.  I would be thinking in my head there is no way that is what I look like but I knew it was true.  But I also knew I couldn't do this until I was in the right mentality and part of me was afraid that it was not going to be easy and that I was going to feel like I was stuck at my weight forever. 

Well in March my best friend Kristina and I were on a walk together and she was talking about losing weight and I made the suggestion that we should each weigh ourselves each week and report if we lost or gained that past week just for accountability.  Well a few weeks went by and no one said anything and then Kristina called me and asked if i was serious about it and I said yes.  OH MY GOSH I WAS AFRAID!!!!  No turning back now!  But I was ready.  Kristina came over that Sunday night with her scale and we weighed ourselves and I was shocked, I weighed as much as I did when I was 9 months preggers with Hailey!  I had no idea I had creeped up to that high. 

So on April 2nd I started and made the decision we weren't losing weight to get skinny but we are losing weight to get healthy.  I didn't want Hailey to see me losing weight and to think she needs to be skinny, I don't think skinny = healthy by any means and I don't want her to think that, it's all about outter appearances because it is not.  So in our house there has been lots of fruits and veggies (fresh!) more than there used to be a lots of whole grains and chicken and turkey.  And drinking a TON (a gallon) of water each day. 

Now with being a single mom, it is not easy by any means to try to eat healthy and exercise with a 6 year old!  I do not have the money to afford a membership to the gym so I can only exercise when I can get Hailey outside with me on her bike while I walk/run.  Believe me when I say this....that is NOT always an easy thing to do!  Sometimes I am literally begging her for 1 more block and then we'll go to the park.  I'm sure some of the people hearing our conversations thought I was the meanest mom ever but COME ON HAILEY...Mama's got a big bootie and she's gotta walk it off!  lol  Thankfully though on a few of the colder days in April (go figure it was hot in March and then I start in April and it gets cold out) that my sister Tracy and/or Brother-in-law Chris have watched Hailey for an hour here or there so I could get out and run/walk.  THANK YOU GUYS!!!! 

As of this morning I have lost 15lbs!!!!!  I screamed when I read the scale this morning and got tears in my eyes.  I know that in the sceem of things I still have 70lbs to lose but I really thought in my mind that I wouldn't be able to get past 10lb weight loss.  I know that might sound silly but I really thought I just wouldn't be able to do it.  I am so pumped and so proud of myself!!!  No I am not going to put how much I weighed up on here yet because I'm still too embarressed about it but someday you might know but not yet! 

I didn't take an actual starting weight picture, I was too afraid to actually put it out there that I was starting even though I knew in my head I was, it was just like my insurance incase it didn't happen or something!  lol  who knows!  But below is a picture I look actually just a few days before we weighed in for the first time and then there are the picture from today.  You probably can't really tell a difference but I can.  The pants that I have on, (grey ones) are normally the ones that I have to let "stretch out" a little bit before they really fit me but this morning I put them on and the slide right on no problem!  Also the jeans that I have on in the starting photo now need to be sewn in about 1 1/2 inches around my waist and they are now baggy in my butt and legs and they were a perfect fit when I had them on in that picture.  Pretty awesome! 

So there it is, totally putting myself out there!  Not the greatest pictures, I should put the same outfit on everytime but again, it's not about what anyone else thinks or sees...I can FEEL the difference already and that's all I'm worried about!  I am doing it this time!  My goal is that by the fall I am able to run my first 5k and I have NEVER EVER been a runner, let alone running a mile!  But I am doing this for myself because I don't want to be the mom who is never in pictures with her daughter because she doesn't like the way she looks and I want to set the right example to Hailey so hopefully she doesn't struggle with weight and eating issues like I have most of my life.