A New Beginning-Sharon

I guess I will be the first one of the 4 of us to post my story on here! We started as of yesterday, and all of us have quite a bit of work to do.


I am 24 years old, and weigh just over 200 lbs, the highest I have ever weighed. I am pre-diabetic, or so my insulin levels show me, at just 200 lbs! I have never been the smallest person, but my true weight gain journey begins about halfway through my freshman year in college, in early 2006. I started college at about 148 lbs, after losing almost 25 my junior/senior years of high school. I started taking anti-anxiety/anti-depressant medication, which quickly made me not only gain the weight back that I had lost, but a bit more as well. I started my sophomore year at about 165 lbs, and have been gaining ever since. Some of my early weight gain after my initial weight gain was, well, because I was depressed that I had gained weight, and it turned into a vicious cycle. I had turned a corner in late 2007, and was started to lose again when I lost my paternal grandfather.

My grieving process for my grandfather took over a year and a half, with me having false hope that it was just a bad joke that someone was playing on me. However, I was planning a wedding, in my junior year of college, and had a wonderful life with my fiance. In early 2008, we also agreed to stop eating fast food, which we did pretty much religiously. Those things were able to, for the most part, keep my loss off my mind, but I also found it difficult to do much more than school, working, and staying sane. In summer 2008 I worked at a place that promoted fitness, and did quite a bit of exercising that summer, but had minimal weight loss. Then, entered my senior year, took classes, worked, and continued to plan my wedding. I got married in May 2009, at my lowest weight since 2006, which was approximately 180 lbs. I also graduated from college that May. I finally got closer in early June 2009, when I was able to visit the cemetery where my grandpa on my honeymoon.

This brought a rush of relief, and a feeling that my grieving for him was over. Just prior to my wedding, however, my husband had been diagnosed with 2 ruptured discs in his back (at age 22!) and so the stress of that impending surgery, and the fear of what might happen, started to close in on me. However, prior to my wedding, I had lost about 10 lbs (I was at 190) and was able to keep it off. I started graduate school in Fall 2009, and got a job as well. I had big plans in summer of 2010 to go crazy losing weight before my trip to Japan. However, in April 2010 my dad got horribly, horribly sick. He went from being crazy healthy, 170 lbs, all muscle, working out 3 days a week, to being in a medicated coma in a little under a week. We got told in mid-April that he had a disease only 300 others on record had had, and that we needed to brace ourselves. He survived April, and in May got released from the hospital. Summer 2010 was my chance to try to make as much about my dad as possible, and I got to spend alot of time with him. However, while I was in Japan in late July, he got sick again. By the time we arrived home, he was home from that hospital visit, but things didnt look good. We lost him August 4, 10 days before his 52nd birthday.

After this loss, for awhile I decided everything I had done to try to lose weight to that point wasnt worth it. I started eating fast food again, and one day had so many diet Pepsi's that I had to tell my husband not to let me drink that many ever again, because they tasted like ash. I decided I would be happy if I "didn't gain much" in the aftermath of his death, and decided that my graduate school grades and appearing normal was more important than my health. My dad was the healthiest person I knew, and still we lost him, so any weight I lost wouldn't be worth it if it came at the sacrifice of my friends and family.

But now, I have worked through alot of that grief, and I am ready to tackle this beast head on. I am ready to be healthy, and pretty, and energetic, because I am only 24, and I have alot of life in front of me.

Welcome!

Welcome to our blog!

We are a group of 4 ladies from Indiana participating in a local YMCA competition, called Downtown Weighs In. Its a summer long competition starting in Mid-May. All 4 of us have weight we want to lose, and health we want to regain!

This blog is to serve a couple of purposes. One is for each of us to tell our stories, from before weight loss began, and to serve as a tool to keep us accountable to one another. Another is for the rest of you, our readers, to keep track of how we are doing during the actual weight loss journey we are taking this summer. We will keep you up to date on our current workout experiences, any special events we take part in, and how our weight loss is going. SO, it is also up to YOU, our readership, to keep us accountable!

Thank you so much in participating with us through this experience, we all need all the support we can get!