The Journey begins

Hello all, I will be putting pictures of my progress up soon along with questions, recipes, different fitness programs and the like. For now however let me take you part way down the path. All throughout high school and even a bit afterwards I did not have a weight problem at all, but like any kid at that age I though I did. I remember if I got anywhere near 100lbs I dieted until I dropped back down. I am only 5ft tall so imagine that stupidity that I had gone through. I can not even imagine going that thin again, I am so glad to leave that girl behind except for her adventurous spirit. With that being said I worked hard after high school and just went through the motions, work, friends, food, sleep, work again with not a thought of what I was funneling down my throat, after all I was still young and never had an issue with what I was eating before so why would I think about it now. Well that was completely wrong. Where the point that I got fat started I am not sure. I do remember looking at a picture that was taken of me and wondering who it was. It was at that point somewhere that I said enough and vowed to lose the weight but I did not know how I was going to do that. Now this was around 15-20 years ago give or take. I was like most people that said I will just cut back on food that should take care of it, but it barely scratched the surface. Don't get me wrong food is a big part of it but as I had to learn it was not as simple as cutting back. I had to learn about what I was putting in my body and when. I also had to learn about exercising the right way. As a kid running around constantly and never really stopping helped but as an adult there was no way that was going to cut it. I dieted here and there with the weight going up and down but it wasn't until I got into Tae Kwon Do that I noticed the significant change in my body. I was at about 115lbs then and still was looking to lose 5 or more pounds because I was still in that mindset of it being too big. I was mostly muscle at the time but that scale was still ruling my life. I have always had big thighs, it is the one thing that has never changed in all this time and it was the one thing that I just kept seeing as a problem. Had I stopped to think of my past of youth cheerleading, some gymnastics, volleyball and at that time Tae Kwon Do it would have hit me that all of that involved a lot of leg work and therefore is where my "big" thighs came into play and the only change in that would be to lengthen my muscles and not try to rid them all together. And if the thighs were not enough here came the dreaded belly! I always had what most of us call the "pouch", I am Italian after all and pasta and bread was in almost every meal and so no matter what, it was going to be there. But then it grew and grew and grew and suddenly all I saw was belly, it even made me forget the thighs! So now what? I started to get into yoga and even thought about heading to Colorado for the yoga journal yoga convention but as anyone who has done yoga from tapes (yes those were the media of the future then lol) knows it is one thing to do tapes it is quite another to go into classes and so I thought I needed to get into some classes before committing to going to the convention and so at the time I was living in Lower Burrell, Pa and my bus I took into work always passed a Tae Kwon Do place and the sign in the window had listed many of the classes that were being offered and one of them was yoga and so it was set, I would go take the class and then head off to Colorado. However when I had called the classes were not being offered at the time but I was welcomed to come try Tae Kwon Do since it was also on my list of things I wanted to do and so I did. I remember thinking that I was just going to observe a class and so I was in jeans and that became my first uniform that I worked out in but I quickly fell in love and so now I had a new outlet to kiss weight goodbye. It worked for awhile and I got to my brown belt which was just 2 belts away from black and then I decided to buy a house. Yep bye bye money and bye bye class. I was back to my circle again except things fell by the waist side and it became work, food, sleep work, repeat. Even though I was no longer available to go to classes the huge thing I forgot was that I still needed to practice and I still needed to eat right and so back on the weight went and back to the yo yo diets my body went. By the time things had even somewhat settled down to where I was thinking to possible go back to class 10 years had went by and with no practicing there was so much that I had forgotten and so I threw it back out of my mind. I topped out at somewhere around 160lbs at some point afterwards and so once again I did not even notice getting that big until I saw a picture and that is when the gym membership came about. I had a trainer at the time who really worked with me and got me stronger and I was down to 139lbs. A place I would kill for right now, but more about that later. Eventually I was done with my training and really did not have the money to commit to anymore time on it but still stayed with the gym until one day I got sick and had to take time off. Just a simple cold and yet it brought me to a fitness black hole and so when I went back it became less and less time I was spending at the gym to the point where I pay and have not been there in months. I needed something else that was going to fit in my schedule and that is where Beachbody came in to play. It started a few years ago with P90x and as a bigger person who sat on her butt instead of going to the gym this program was killer but I still loved it and after 2 rounds of it I saw progress but knew what I needed to practice on and that little voice in my head still would not go away and once again I went into rotation of work and sleep. Thanks to house that seemed to suck out any sort of money that I had I had to start thinking of different ways to make money to pay for it and so I slumped into a bad rhythm again. That is until now! In future posts I will document my Beachbody journey and how figured out the eating thing so far. I hope any of you reading this that are going through the same thing find this useful and informative! I am still on my path and I welcome the company!