Gettin' My Sexy Back

Ok friends...I said I was going to talk more about ME on the blog, so you're gonna get it...in all of it's glory. I'm putting this out there, and I hope a couple of things: 1) That you all can hold me accountable. 2) That you will encourage me. and 3) That maybe I can inspire someone else!

So here's the deal. When Patrick and I met, I weighed about 170 lbs. I've never been a small girl by any means. I played softball for 11 years, and those girls weren't usually very "petite" if you will. But nevertheless, I was overweight. I lost 35 lbs my senior year of high school...and then college happened. I gained a little weight, but nothing too bad. When college was done, that's, when I started dating Patrick.
Like I said...no skinny minnie here:

And then shit just got outta control...I just didn't care anymore. I had a man who loved me, and I didn't watch what I ate before we got married. I gained weight. I can't tell you what I weighed when we got married, but I know that I didn't fit into my wedding dress very well. While I loooooove love love this picture and my husband looks like the hottest cowboy I've ever seen, I don't love the fact that my arm fat dominates the picture, and my dress is cutting into my back fat.

So...fast forward to 2011...I weighed my heaviest. Ready for this....227. Yep. I weighed a whopping 227 pounds.

I can't remember exactly when after this, but I think it was when we had returned from our cruise (where the pic above was taken). I couldn't do it anymore. I was unhappy with how I looked, which pretty much made me unhappy about myself overall. My marriage suffered, my self esteem was in the toilet, and I ate to cope with my feelings. Obviously, that didn't turn out pretty.

I got so sick and tired of being sick and tired with how I felt. So I did something about it. It's been a sloooowwwww process, but I'm glad to see that I've lost 40 pounds! I now weigh 187. The day that I was under 200 pounds was a HUGE day for me!

 I know, 40 pounds in 2 years doesn't seem like that much. But I'll tell you this...it was a lifestyle change. I no longer eat whatever I want whenever I want it. If I do happen to have a bad day, I'll jump right back on the bandwagon. I make healthier choices, and I try to stay more active. Of course I sometimes fall off course, but I have gotten back on after a short break.

Here is the latest full-length picture of myself:

And I want to say I've lost about 7-8 lbs since this picture was taken. I FEEL so much better about myself, and am a lot more confident in myself. My goal right now is to get to 170. If I decide I'm ok with that, then I'll stay there. But if I want to keep going, I'll keep going. It still seems like a far way off, but I've got 17 lbs to go. In the grand scheme of things, 17 isn't that many to go since I've already lost 40! And I can tell you that I weigh less than I did when we got married, because I'm fitting into jeans that didn't fit when we got married!

Something that I can help credit this weight loss to is the myfitnesspal app. It definitely holds you accountable! I stopped using it for a little while because I thought I'd be ok since I knew how many calories were in the things that I ate. I never ate a lot of anything, but I'd take lots of small bites here and there. And wouldn't you know, when I finally did start adding it up, I was over my calorie limit! If you look on the right hand side of my page, you'll see my MFP counter that shows all of the weight I lost. It only says 29 lbs lost on there right now because I started MFP after I'd lost some weight. If you want to join on my journey, come find me! My username is nicoledhackley.

So I'm telling you guys all of this for the 3 reasons above. How about you? Did you lose a bunch of weight? Want to? I'll help encourage you the best that I can! I look forward to sharing what my meal plans look like, how I exercise and what else I do to try to keep up the hard fight!