The new journey that I am on!

I haven't updated my blog for a while, but I felt that it’s time for me to tell about the journey that I am taking right now in my life. I just want to give a little background about the reason I started this journey. All of my life I have struggled with my weight and with my self-esteem. For a long time in high school I didn't do a lot to change things, until I finally got sick and tired of how I felt. I went to counseling because of my self-esteem and depression. I was suffering and I needed help. It was getting to the point to where I didn't want to even live in this life anymore. My counselor and I started talking about why I struggled with my weight. It was due to dealing with food with every emotion that I had ever felt. I was diagnosed as being a compulsive eater. I dealt with food, instead of handling it in a different way.  I went the doctor and started doing what I needed to do to lose weight. I graduated and when off to my first year of college and continued losing weight. This was a life changing milestone in my life because it helped me in being able to qualify for missionary service. In order for me to serve a mission for my church I had to be in a top physical condition. Because I had lost 75 pounds I was able to serve my mission. Throughout my mission I tried to maintain my weight, but due to stress and the lack of time of physical exercise and being fed all the time by members I gained weight. Gaining back the weight that I had lost was devastating to me. I became so depressed and just gave up on myself. When I came home off my mission I started meeting with my doctor again to see what I could do again to start losing weight. It was time for a change.

He and I started a plan. This was the start of the journey that I am on. My journey began in December 2015. Dr. Shamo and I decided made the plan that I would start being accountable for my health by checking in with him once a month to see how my progress was in losing weight and how I was doing in changing my lifestyle. This lifestyle was going to be for me, but also for the results of my future. Doctor Shamo just laid it all out there and told me if things didn’t change then I wouldn’t be here to have a future. It scared me to hear these things. No one wants to be told that they aren’t going to be around. I knew that this was a step that I needed to make for myself. I knew that it wasn’t going to be easy, but I knew that it was going to be worth it. Physical activity has never been my greatest strength. In school P.E. was something that I dreaded every single day and I did all that I could to get out of it. Making it a more active part of my lifestyle was going to be a challenge for me. To tell the truth it was just plain hell. I didn’t want to have to change myself, but I knew that I needed to. So how does one start changing their lifestyle? Let me tell you how I started to change mine.

Below are some pictures of me throughout the years of me and my struggle with my weight.

Age 5

Age 9

Age 13

Age 16

Age 18

College

My Mission

Now  Age 22