Foreword

I've never written a blog.  Never written a book.  To be honest, I only kept a journal when I was forced to in English in high school.  Letting people into our weird little worlds that we create opens us up to vulnerability.  And, as a rule, most of us avoid it.  For good reason, really.  But, even knowing all of the risks, here I sit in the glow of a laptop, selecting the thoughts out of my own weird little world to share with hundreds of you.  Maybe thousands if you feel like you should share it with others.  And, I'm OK with that.

After months of urging from a dozen friends of so, I've decided to blog about this incredible, life changing journey I started 3 years ago.  Even I think it's amazing.  And, I'm mostly convinced not many people will take the time to read this.  But, if I convince even one person to take the steps that will reconstruct their world so that they feel as great as I do almost every day, it is worth it.  And I mean that.

As I sit here today, I have lost a total of 63 pounds (with about 10-18 more to go).  I have went from a couch potato who was exhausted from everyday life to an empowered athlete that completed a half marathon, running the whole way, with ambitions of running a full marathon in 2014.  I guess what makes my situation unique is that I didn't have a personal trainer or dietitan.  I didn't have thousands of dollars in home gym equipment.  What I did have was a husband who worked nights, bouts with gestational diabetes, 2 kids under the age of 3 whom I breast fed 10 months each, a job that demanded 30+ hours a week, a budget to keep in mind while shopping for healthy food and quite possibly one of the most stubborn outlooks on life you've ever met.

This is how I did it.  The bare bones, the tears, the sweat, the prayers to God for strength and the up-at-dawn-this-is-my-dream-and-I'll-be-damned-if-I-fail story.

I hope you draw inspiration from this to begin writing a story of your own.