#goals

I had always hoped one day to go back to college and graduate with a diploma. I wanted to feel what achieving that accomplishment would feel like. So when I graduated in June of this year, with Honours, I thought to myself that I had literately fulfilled a goal.  Veni, Vidi, Vici. I came, I saw, I conquered. But you know what happens after you've achieved your goal, you are left with the task of setting and obtaining a new one. It was almost a sadness that fell upon me.

A 'now what?' feeling.

A void.

I had wanted this for so long and now it was mine. Eventually I stopped asking myself 'now what?' and started to ask myself ' what's next?'.

A few weeks following graduation I was working at the job I co-oped for. I was so happy to be out of school, diploma in hand and working in the field I worked so hard to get into. One day I bent down to search through a lower drawer of a filing cabinet and felt and heard my knees make a sound that should only be heard coming from someone over the age of 50. It was a crunching noise. Like my body weight was too much for my knees to bear. Whoa! I was worried. I was disgusted. I was immediately scared that this desk job I so badly wanted to be at was making me unhealthy. I started to evaluate my health. I realized that I was very sedative every day. I heard the tale of the dreaded 'secretary's ass' and this thought ran through my mind regularly. Since I had started at the firm I gained roughly 15 to 17 pounds. I went from working two, very active, jobs to sitting on my ass all day. To boot, I was so exhausted from the mental stress of the job that when I came home I was just done. Pooped. Exhausted. Tired. After dinner, which was usually take out or a quick unhealthy fix, I would crash on the couch and that's where I stayed. I worked hard so I justified my laziness by telling myself I deserved to relax and be still. I also justified my eating habits in the same way, because I deserved it. I deserved that Big Mac or that bowl of chips at 9:00 p.m.

These thoughts of how unhealthy my lifestyle was kept consuming me. I was stuck in a vicious cycle and I was gaining weight at a rapid pace.

To be honest, I've always struggled with my weight. I don't remember a time in my adult life, or even my teenage life, where I didn't weight less than 173 lbs. I've never shopped for clothes in a size less than a large or size 12. I have always been a heavier set individual. Sure, I've lost weight in the past. After having my daughter, I ended up losing 20 pounds and being 15 pounds under my pre baby weight. A year later the scale began to creep up. It was a stressful time and I gained nearly 10 pounds back. At my heaviest, not pregnant, I weighed 216 lbs. At this stage in the game I was back up to 195 lbs and gaining. I knew I needed to do something. So I went back to the gym and started watching what I ate. I started to lose weight. It was at that time that I promised myself I would never get above 200 lbs again...EVER! Fast forward to my break up with M's dad. I was working a lot as a server at a bar and had adopted an intermittent fasting diet. I had weighed 183 lbs when I started my job at the bar and within a few months I was down 12 pounds. I was the best I'd looked since high school, well except that I valued a flat iron and makeup more than I did back then. I had confidence for the first time in a long time. I felt great. I got a second job working at the local Casino as a hostess. My job was walking, walking all day. Then after dating my now boyfriend for a few months the love weight began to pile on. Yes, love weight. You all know what I mean. The weight you gain when you are in a new relationship and are at the comfortable stage in said relationship. The stage when you go out to dinner all the time and eat late at night together. You don't feel the need to dress up but rather comfies are the norm. The thing about comfies is that you don't realize you are gaining weight because of the elasticity in most sweats and hoodies. Needless to say I gained a few pounds. Then I stopped working because I had gone back to school.   Juggling both was not in the cards for me. So for nearly two years I didn't work. Therefore the activity level I was getting from running around at the bar and/or the Casino all the time ceased to exist and since I still had the same poor eating habits my body had no choice but to gain weight. I managed to get back up to 183-185 lbs by the time I was hired at the law firm that I currently work at.

Back to the moment I heard my knees crunch. That was in July of this year. It was then that I realized I had to do something before I was too far gone.

That's when I made a new goal.

Stay tuned for part 2 of this blog...