Where do I begin?

I really don't know where to start this post. I'm not even sure I want to start it, but I really want to chronicle my journey back to me. A few months ago, I casually mentioned to Renee, my sister-the trainer, that when Chloe goes to preschool in the fall, I would love to meet with her and workout. Thankfully, she's not like me, and she said we could give it a try sooner than that. I wasn't sure how Chloe would be at the gym, but I figured it was worth a try. So far, we've met five times, and Chloe has done great. I was really worried about that part, because I want to be able to focus on me and get a really good workout. Well, I guess it's working, because as of today, I've lost 10 pounds!! I'm so excited! My body fat percentage also went down over 1%.

Now that I've shared my success this far, I would like to back track a bit. Keith and I have been married for almost 13 years, and as soon as we weren't in college anymore, I started gaining weight. I never liked it, even when I was still pretty small, but I just never did anything about it. I've never really changed my eating, even when I could see that I was gaining weight. Three babies and a decade of not eating good, and never really getting regular exercise have added 70 pounds! That's a crazy amount of extra weight to be carrying around. I've tried to lose weight in the past, but I just never stuck with anything. Most of the time I've been making excuses. It got to the point that I was scared to try to lose it, because I was scared to fail, again. That became my biggest excuse. I went into it this time with a pretty good attitude, but I wasn't sure how much I would change what I ate at first. After only one workout, I completely changed how and what I ate. I guess I decided I wasn't going to fail this time, and I wasn't going to sabotage myself. I was working so hard to get it off, I just couldn't eat enough to put it right back on. My first thing was to cut out after supper snacks. Then I decided to drink only water, no cokes and no sweet tea. Then came cutting back on salt. Pretty soon, I stopped snacking at all, with the exception of fruit when I was actually hungry. Some days I eat more frequent smaller meals, but most days I eat three meals, with a healthy snack in the afternoon. I haven't changed what I'm eating as much. I still enjoy the same meals as before, but I have much smaller portions. I don't have seconds. I don't eat while I'm cooking, or while I'm cleaning it up. I'm ecstatic that I'm losing weight, and feeling better. My clothes fit better and better with each passing week. The best part, is that I don't feel deprived of yummy foods. That is a big thing for me. I could never do all those fad diets that restrict whole food groups. I just know that it wouldn't work for me. I'll continue to update on my progress once or twice a month. It still scares me a little to share this with everyone, but I'm determined this time. I'm not dieting, I'm making lifestyle changes. I can't wait to post my picture on here when I reach my goal.