About Me

I am starting this blog to keep track of what I hope is a lasting and life-changing weight loss journey. All weight loss journeys begin with a back story. How did I decide to lose weight? What brought me to this point? Mine is no different.

I've never been very thin but I did spend most of my life at a a healthy weight and I was very active. In high school, I ran track and played soccer and I continued to do both into my adult life. In 2015 and 2016, I even ran half marathons! So how did someone like this find herself keeping a weight loss blog?

In 2016, I noticed a slight weight gain that, unfortunately, coincided with my wedding. Although wedding dress shopping was very fun and I was able to do it with my best friends, I felt very self conscious trying on wedding dresses in front of them because I looked pudgy in all of them. I didn't feel like I looked like a beautiful princess or whatever one is supposed to feel while trying on dresses. If anything, I felt ashamed when the seamstress told me that I was fitted for a size 12 dress! I had been used to wearing size 6 most of my life so being told I was a size 12 was disheartening for me.  There was no time to lose the weight. We got engaged and married within a span of 4 months. So, from then on, I found it hard to enjoy some aspects of the wedding because I wasn't happy with myself. I tried to minimize the close-ups of our wedding pictures so that people would not notice my fat arms. I suggested pictures that were from a distance. Even now when I see them, I think how I could have looked so much better if I hadn't gained any weight. It makes me so sad to have this reaction. 

Later that year I moved to Germany with my husband and my weight began to climb again. It was hard adjusting to a new life and arriving in the Fall, we gravitated towards heavier foods that kept us warm like stews and mashed potatoes. Although I did try to keep active by running 5k every day, I started having very little energy. After a visit to the Dr., I was diagnosed with hypothyroidism and given medication to help get it under control. While the medication boosted my energy levels, I had already managed to gain about 10 lbs, bringing me to my highest ever weight of 168 lbs. Try as I might, I just could not get the weight to come off. I ran every week. I did workouts indoors. I did zumba in the park. Nothing worked. Realizing that my hypothyroidism was working against me to make sure that losing weight was impossible, I gave up and resigned myself to my new size.

It was now 2017, and we moved to Spain in August so that I could start an MBA program. Although the start of a new program should have been super exciting and I should have been trying very hard to make new friends, I spent most of the time trying to hide my stomach in my now-too-tight business dresses. The program was obviously pretty stressful as I had to adjust to a new country, new people, and a pretty heavy course load all at once. In the first six months, I had gained another 10 pounds. All of the assignments led to stress eating or very frequent treats and it didn't help that there is a bakery on every corner in Spain! In the meantime, my thyroid had gone completely haywire and no doctor could tell me what was going on. I just couldn't find a way out of this hole I had dug myself in to. I also tried to ignore the problem because I was afraid of confronting it so I avoided stepping on the scale. This of course helped no one. 

When graduation rolled around in March 2019, I was excited to close this chapter in my life but also mortified because of course there would be pictures. I had gained so much weight at this point; I weighed in at 177 lbs.! Never in my life had I weighed so much. But I had gotten so depressed and didn't know what to do so the best thing I could think of was to just keep hiding it. I bought a very flowing dress to wear and hoped that my weight gain wouldn't show up in pictures. Finally, when  I saw the photos and tried on clothes that fit me a year ago but now would not close, I knew that there was no hiding it anymore. All of the pictures from my graduation made me cringe since my face just looked SO fat.

On the thyroid front, I had finally been diagnosed with hyperthyroidism as the true cause behind all of my thyroid troubles when I started manifesting some typical symptoms like rapid heart beat. After a small weight loss period, my Dr. put me on medication and forbade me from doing any exercise. This was a huge bummer because I had joined a gym in January and was seeing a personal trainer. But, I was also having crazy episodes of tachycardia, so I knew it was for the best. Of course, all of my weight problems were only exacerbated by my lack of exercise. Since my appointment with the Dr,, I hadn't been able to step on the scale because I was afraid of what I would see. 

I finally did so on May 6th, 2019. 187 lbs. How did I manage to gain another 10 lbs. just over the last 2 months?! It was an extremely sobering moment thinking that I was so close to weighing 200 lbs, something I would never have imagined happening in my entire life. I wanted to break down and cry thinking about the super active and fit runner that I used to be and that was now being imprisoned by all of this excess weight.

It was in that moment that I knew I had to do something to reverse all of the damage done to my body and that this time I needed to stick to it and not give up. It was a serious health matter. My BMI meant that I was obese. Three years into my marriage, I wanted to start thinking about children, but my weight made it hard to think about. I also suffer from PCOS. This combined with thyroid problems already made it hard to consider children, but my weight made it seem like it could never happen. So, I resolved to lose the weight to give us a chance at having a family and give me a chance to go back to the fit person that I know I am. 

This blog is about my food and exercise habits. I will be using the NOOM app to help me better control my portions, stay motivated, count calories, and increase my activity. As my hyperthyroidism gets under control, I will also be introducing exercise routines. I am writing this because I want to hold myself accountable and to have a record of this important time in my life. But, I also think it can be very helpful for anyone following or thinking of following the NOOM diet as a way to offer information and support. 

Please join me as I journey back to fit.