No More Excuses

Well, every blog needs an introductory post, so I figure I might as well give a little bit of back story before I just jump right in. Let me introduce myself. My name's Meghan, I'm 22 years old, and I currently live in Sarasota, FL, but I'll be moving back to my hometown of Seekonk, MA this weekend. I decided to start this blog because, to be quite frank, I'm fat. Now don't get me wrong, I don't have any severe self-esteem issues, and I actually think I'm decently attractive. But at the end of the day, I'm tired of beating around the bush and describing myself as "a little overweight" or telling people that "I could lose a few pounds." Honestly, for a 5'5" female, I am VERY overweight. I've been overweight for most of my life, and I feel like for the longest time, I didn't even want to admit it to myself. Who wants to be the fat girl?? But the fact of the matter is, I've been the fat girl for a very long time. Don't get me wrong, I've always had a good group of friends, and it's not like I was ostracized in high school or had food thrown at me during lunch or anything like that, but I still can't really think of any friends I had growing up who were bigger than me.

So I've decided to change that. I'm tired of being the heaviest person in my group of friends, I'm tired of being embarrassed about my weight, and I'm tired of trying to "hide" the fact that I'm fat. Let's be real here, it's not exactly a secret. Now let me give you a little bit of back story about myself, so you can understand where I'm coming from, what my goals are, and what things I've already accomplished. Like I said, I'm 22 years old. When I was younger I was relatively active, but as I got older, I started to lead a very sedentary lifestyle. During my pre-teen and early teen years, I was actively involved in competitive swimming, which I absolutely loved. When I entered high school I got involved in the school's soccer team (I'm pretty sure we didn't win a single game all season), and I also took karate classes outside of school. In my sophomore year I joined the school's indoor and outdoor track teams, competing in the shotput (I was the worst shotputter in the league. Embarrassing) and discus events. But once I reached my junior year, I put aside sports and recreational exercise to really immerse myself in the drama club, which I was extremely passionate about at the time. In other words, I was a HUGE nerd. As enjoyable as drama was for me, it did absolutely nothing for my diet or health. Spending most of my time rehearsing and planning for shows, I found myself frequently resorting to a quick dinner at McDonald's or Wendy's, and with minimal, amateur dancing for the shows I was in being the only exercise I was getting, weight gain was inevitable. Fast forward to college where I experienced plenty of drunken nights that resulted in drunken binges, and it isn't hard to see how I wound up weighing 235 pounds.

Yes, that's right. 235 pounds. Embarrassing, right? I'm very happy to say that this was my weight when I began my journey, and since then I've lost close to 25 pounds, weighing 211.8 pounds. Quite obviously this is not my goal weight, but we're getting there. I decided to write a blog about my weight loss journey, because I want people to see that it IS possible to lose weight, and that no, you DON'T have to starve yourself to do it. I moved down to Sarasota with my best friend, Jeff, in early April of this year. A little less than a year ago, Jeff lost 50 pounds, and he looks fantastic. The sad thing is, he and I had started a little weight loss competition. He lost 50 pounds in three months. I lost 10 pounds, which I managed to gain back, and then some.

But in moving down to Florida with Jeff, I decided it was time for a life transformation. This is something we discussed extensively before we came down here. We both wanted to be able to visit all of our friends and family up north, and for all of them to be shocked by how much we'd both changed. When we first got down here, I did make some lifestyle changes. I definitely cut down on my portions, and I stopped eating junk food like cookies and chips. I also started counting calories and exercising occasionally. I lost some weight, but I wasn't seeing the results that I really wanted.

That's when Jeff told me that his friend Lauren would be willing to write up a diet and exercise plan for me. I jumped at the chance, and if you'd seen pictures of this girl, you would too. I have never seen someone so in shape in my life. It's entirely possible that she doesn't have an ounce of fat on her body, and she is RIPPED. So naturally, I jumped at the chance for her to whip my fat ass into shape. Ever since I've been following Lauren's diet and exercise plan, I've been seeing some great results. I feel a lot better, and I'm definitely feeling a lot less sluggish. I've made some major changes in my diet, (I don't eat carbs right now. THAT'S definitely taken some getting used to) and I work out every day now. It isn't easy, but it definitely isn't as difficult as I would've thought.

And that's why I'm starting this blog. Because I KNOW that there are people out there just like me. People who look at the self-help and diet books in Borders and think, "Fuck that skinny bitch, of course it's easy for her to give advice on how to eat well." I personally believe that it's a lot easier and a lot more motivating to take advice about diet and exercise from someone who's been there, and someone who knows what it's like to struggle with food. I'm determined to not only help myself , but to help even ONE person reading this blog who thinks that it's too late for them, or that they can't do it on their own. Hopefully through this blog, we can do it together.