UPDATE

It's been over two months, I think, since I started this blog. In this time I have continued to push myself and surprise myself at all I am capable of doing. When I started, my weight was 262 pounds. I lost close to 10 but then managed to put it all back on. I felt so discouraged and in all honestly, I nearly gave up.

A month ago I made an appointment with my doctor to discuss this issue. Part of my problem was always feeling hungry. I drink water non stop during the day, I have cut down on my fast food consumption, and made changes to my daily diet. I eat breakfast now, I make better choices when it comes to eating lunch and dinner. I was still not getting a full feeling. For a few days, I felt like I was cheating, but the more I thought about it I realized I wasn't. My doctor prescribed me an appetite suppressant. I want to do this without help, but I realized that right now I needed a little bit.

I still eat better, I still go to the gym regularly. I haven't reverted back into any old habits. I do feel better though, I can eat a meal and finally feel like I have eaten enough, like I have a handle on what and how much to eat in order to continue losing weight and maintaining a healthy lifestyle.

To date I have lost 18 pounds. I am down to 246 pounds, I cannot remember the last time I was under 250, this is huge for me. I personally do not see much of a physical change in my appearance, but others have so I know what I am doing is working. I do feel better in general and I am making progress in my workouts as well. When I first started walking, it took me nearly 18 minutes to walk a mile. I can do it now in about 16 and a half minutes. I know these aren't huge milestones, but it is these little things that show me and I am getting somewhere. 

There have been more moments of discouragement than I care to admit. I always knew I was in for a long, hard journey with this, but it's just something you cannot truly appreciate the difficulty behind it until you get into it.

Sometimes I cannot believe I have kept up with this and then others I am so thankful that I finally found the motivation to keep this going. I probably will never know what clicked in my mind that day, but I am so glad it did.

From sworn enemies to besties

I have been trying to work up my time on the elliptical machine. The first few days my time was just over 3 minutes. Over the course of last week I made it up to seven minutes. When I got to the gym Friday I was determined to make it a full 10 minutes.

I made my way to the elliptical, put on my music and got to it. I got to 5 minutes, feeling pretty good. I kept going and the next thing I knew I was at 8.5 minutes. I thought, I have totally got this. The next time I looked down I had gone over 11 minutes! Well, I decided since I had gone over my goal that I was going to keep going and push for 15.

I kept pushing myself. Telling myself I got this. I made it 20 whole minuted before I called it quits!!!! I felt amazing afterwards and ready to take on anything.

I learned a valuable lesson that day. Well, two actually. The first one being I can do it. I just have to concentrate on the moment I am in rather than staring at the time clock. The second is that no one is paying attention to me because they are busy working on themselves. Part of what kept me from pushing harder before has always been my fear that people are watching and judging me. I really need to continue working on that.