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Introduction Text Now that my baby making days are over :-( I can focus on getting to my weight goal for good. I have my goals broken down into 3 phases. The first phase is to get back to pre-pregnancy weight. Then the weight I was when I got married. After that, I will focus on hitting my goal weight. I have a number in mind but I'm not sure how realistic it is since having 2 kids (1 natural birth and 1 c-section at 35 weeks). So after hitting my wedding day weight, then I will refocus on toning up my body and body fat. I'm more interested in the way my body looks then what the scale says. So I'm ready to get this journey started. THIS IS A LIFETIME JOURNEY: I was an overweight child. I wasn't every active and I would eat like my brother. I'd try to lose weight and I would but I would always gain it back. When I went to college, I did try to workout more with walks around campus and joining the wellness center. All in all, when I graduated from college I weighed about the same as when I started. So I graduated college in 1996 and I told myself that I was going to wait until I got a job and health insurance that would pay for a gym before I tried one last time to lose weight. If it didn't work, then I wasn't going to try to lose weight anymore. In the time before I got my first job, my father passed away and I lost weight because of the grief but I'd eventually put that weight back on. I finally started a job in Dec 1996 and my insurance kicked 1 month later. So on Jan 21, 1997 (at the age of 23), I joined a gym. I told myself that I was only had to work out 3 times a week and anything more than that was bonus. Well needless to say, I worked out 7 days a week. I did cardio and weight and fell in love with group fitness. I was addicted to say the least. I also started to journal my food and I read any and everything about diet and nutrition. I was under my doctor's care when I started to lose the weight. So I went in every month to get weighed. Sometimes I have lost 10lbs and other not so much. My doctor and the nurses were my biggest cheerleaders. It took me about 1 year and I had gone from 214 to 149. That's a 65lb loss. For me the easiest thing was losing the weight. The hardest part was keeping it off. Anytime I'd gain a few pounds, I would do my little tricks and the weight would drop off. I was still working out every day of the week but my biggest weakness (and still am) is the food part. I love food. After about 1 year, I hired a trainer and even though I didn't lose any weight, I did drop 1 clothes size. I went from a size 8 to a size 6. Hello, when I started this whole process my size 18 pants were getting tight. I was very happy and loved to show off. Maybe I was showing off too much skin :-) Over the years my weight would inch up a few pounds. Then all of a sudden, I was up to 165. Holy cow, how did I get there? My clothes still felt the same :-( This was about the same time that my BF was getting married so we all joined WW. The all dropped out but I stayed with it and got down to 142lbs by the wedding. That weight was a bit too low for me and I just couldn't maintain it. So we upped my goal to 148. This was manageable and I stayed there for a few years. Then I started having tummy issues and the only thing that made it better was to eat something. I went to ever doctor there was and did ever test and everything came back normal. The only thing my doctor could come up with was that I have IBS. But this was affecting my weight. I just couldn't lose anymore. Every trick that I had up my sleeve just didn't work anymore. So I still worked out and kept a food journal and lived my life. Every once in a while, I would workout with a trainer or see a nutritionists just to make sure I was still on track. On May 17, 2008, I got married and my weight then was 162.5lbs. I'd move from my home state (NJ) to another state (VA) and they didn't have my gym anywhere in sight. No problem right because my DH had a treadmill at the house so I could use that. Well, until it broke down. So I was left with just walking and doing workout dvds. To me not the same type of workout that I would get at the gym so the weight was creeping up higher than I wanted so by the time I got pregnant 9 months later, my weight was 173lbs. I gained 42lbs with that pregnancy and lost it all 10 months after baby was born. Nov 5, 2010 I got my BFP (big fat positive) pregnancy test. WooHoo EDD July 17, 2011!!!! So now I'm on to another phase of my journey. For this pregnancy, my goal is to only gain 25lbs. My OB said to aim for 10lbs in the first 20 weeks. Then I should end up at about 30lbs. My goal is to gain nothing in the first trimester. Then even if I gain 1lb a week, it will only be 27lbs. So I'm hitting the gym 3 days a week and modifying when necessary and trying make healthy food choices when the morning sickness allows me to :-) I'm hoping to be a shining example to other mothers that a healthy pregnancy is totally possible. What I've learned about this whole journey is that it is a journey, I will never really arrive at a "finish line" because like my doctor told me at the beginning and I just didn't really understand what he meant "I will always have a weight problem". I now totally understand.

1st goal - lose baby weight - 20.5lbs COMPLETED 7-11-12 2nd goal - 160lbs - lose 7.6lbs COMPLETED 10-24-12 3rd goal - Goal weight 150lbs - lose 10lbs COMPLETED 2-6-13 BODYFAT% goal 20% - 4-18-13 Started Maintenance Phase on July 31, 2013 Range of 149-152lbs 4th goal - Ultimate dream weight 145lbs - lose 5lbs Exercise 3 times a week. Full body toning 2 times a week. Eat fruits/veggies daily

Create an eating routine. It's good to have habits to fall back on and keep me on track. Exercise 1 hour 3-4 times a week Eat clean and remove all processed foods Eat healthy fat. Gotta have it.

Pregnancy#2 gained 30lbs. Delivered at 35 wks via c-section and now working on losing the baby weight as my first goal. 7-11-12 Baby weight gone. Now on to my next goal of 160lbs. 10-24-12 Hit and surpassed goal #2. Now on my my next goal of 150lbs. COMPLETED 2-6-13 4-18-13 Hit my goal of Bodyfat 20% Now time to tweak my program and start to transition to maintenance phase.

Monthly Progress: Total Loss - 62.6bs BODYFAT% goal 20% - 4-18-13 Started Maintenance Phase on July 31, 2013 Range of 149-152lbs

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