I’m a person who has struggled with my weight for as long as I can remember. There are pictures of me from when I was very young that show a girl who was a normal, healthy weight, but I don’t remember ever being that way. My elementary school years were full of humiliation and taunting. It didn’t help that I had red hair, either. It was cut in a “pageboy” style which would’ve been fine if it had actually looked good…it did not. The more I lost my self-confidence, the more I ate and the bigger I got. I wasn’t good at sports. I was the one who always got picked last. I developed an early habit of hiding food and eating it when no one was around. It became my escape, my friend.

By the time I got to 8th grade I had some full blown eating issues. I refused to eat anything but fast food for breakfast and would NOT eat in front of my friends or anyone else except my mom. That meant I didn’t eat lunch at school and by the time I got home in the afternoon I was starving and would eat everything in site. Even after I felt full I would just keep shoving more and more food into my mouth. I treated my body like a trash can because that’s how I felt about myself. I got a little better in high school and would actually eat in front of my friends, but then I got into dieting and trying every crazy thing I could think of to lose weight. 

After high school, a year in college and the end of an extremely unhealthy relationship I finally ended up in a place where the people supported me and taught me how to live a healthy lifestyle. With their help I lost over 100 lbs., gained a confidence I never had before and decided to go back to college to become a teacher. I quickly discovered that without that strong support system I found it easy to fall back into my old habits. Once again, I tried to use food to ease my stress and the weight started to return. I left college to be with my mom who was fighting cancer and the man who is now my husband. The loss of my mom and a rocky start to my marriage gave me plenty of opportunities to unsuccessfully turn to food for comfort.

Now I’ve been married for over 12 years and have two boys, 9 and 11. I’ve been on the weight loss roller coaster the whole time and reached my highest peak near the end of 2009 when I weighed in at 323.6 lbs. It was then that I knew I had to get and stay serious about changing my life. I started Turbo Jam Nov. 1, 2009 and lost about 40 lbs. In the Spring, I got sick and wasn’t able to workout. Once I got out of the habit it was so hard to get back on track. The weight started creeping back on and I made a half-hearted effort through the summer to lose more weight. When Fall came around again I knew I have to do more because I just wasn’t making the progress I was before when I started. I ordered TurboFire, the more intense version of Turbo Jam and quickly began to melt away again. I started ChaLEAN Extreme  on Feb. 1, 2011 and am excited to see my results at the end of the 90 days.

In the process of getting fit and healthy using Beachbody programs, I’ve become a Coach. It keeps me accountable and there’s nothing more rewarding than helping other people finally get off the roller coaster, too, by changing their lifestyle. Here, I’m sharing my experiences so that other people will know that if I can do this they can, too.