Me, me, me

It is very rare for me to post pictures of just myself but today my friends is a special day. I am a daily step on the scale kind of person and today when I stepped on the scale to weigh myself I have officially lost 50 and a half pounds in the last 15 months! I am so incredibly happy with myself that I can accomplish weight loss and do it in the same year as having a baby. My self esteem has improved in leaps and bounds which for me is a good thing. A little insight on me is that I have never in my life felt completely confident in myself. For many years in my childhood a person wrecked my self esteem. I got told on a daily basis that I was fat, I was ugly, I was worthless. I felt like such a bad person and that I didn't deserve happiness. I kept it all inside and took the pain out on myself. I did things that to this day I still have the urge to do when things get stressful. So after Connor was born I basically just let my body go. I kinda just assumed the weight would come off and when it didn't I just again assumed that this was the way it had to be. Exercise had never been a word in my vocabulary in those years. Then I got pregnant with Zachary and the weight gain continued. I felt gigantic and so not happy with my body but I didn't know what to do to change it. When Zachary was about 6 months old I got a coupon for a free one week trial to my parent's gym so I figured I'd try it out and so I went. 5 of my 7 day trial I was there and I was a little shocked that after each workout I was feeling a little bit better about myself and was starting to have a clearer image of what I wanted to accomplish within myself. Once my one week trial was over I took another break from exercising but I found out about a job opening at our local pool/fitness center. I got the job and the second day on the job I was in the fitness center working out. I have to say it was incredibly embarrasing at first. Here I am well over 200 pounds busting my a** on the treadmill. After a few weeks of just walking on the treadmill I mustered up the courage (cuz no one else was in the room at the time!) to actually try running on the treadmill. And once I took up the running that is when I really started to see the weight come off. I lost 25 pounds in a matter of two months but then the unexpected pregnancy came into the picture. Since I was so focused on weight loss and seeing other moms who were pregnant and exercising I made a goal within myself to continue to exercise. I exercised until I was 7 months pregnant and then I got lazy and did nothing at all the last trimester. I was anxious for her to be born so I could go back full force into working out and when she was 3 weeks old I made myself find the time to go in and exercise. I'm very happy that I can motivate myself and that I am realizing that I am worth it as a person and that I do have something to offer this world. So with my weight loss goal closer than ever I'm very happy with my body and what it can accomplish, so yay to me!! :-)