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How Did I Get Here?

My engagement ring - Photo Credit to Jaime Windon of Blonde Photographer, LLC In June of 2010, the love of my life, we'll call him FI (fiance), proposed to me on our vacation in the Outer Banks of North Carolina. The ring was everything I had hoped it would be. Beautiful platinum crossing band with inset crushed diamonds with a gorgeous center stone that was everything I had dreamed of. FI was making my dreams come true. FI with his beautiful hazel eyes, luscious eyelashes, masculine muscular build and swagger. And I, well, I was about 20 pounds heavier than I ever wanted to be and in a right state to pass out when attempting to complete a mile run.

Let me back up a bit...

I was a fairly active teenager. I played a lot of sports growing up, and I danced two hours a day through most of high school, give or take a few months due to related injuries. As you may glean from these blog entries, I'm a giant klutz. As a consolation of my active lifestyle, I was able to eat pretty much anything I wanted in copious amounts.

Fast forward to freshman year of college. You hear about the "freshman 15" when you begin researching campus life. What you don't hear, is that the "freshman 15" becomes the "freshman 36" for some people, as it did for me.

The weight gain was my own fault, though at the time I blamed it on "circumstances outside of my control," such as the non-nutritious options served up gloriously greasy at the campus dining halls (grilled cheese, chicken quesadillas, buffalo chicken sandwiches, etc.) or my busy schedule that made it impossible to make it to the gym with any sort of regularity. See also: capture the flag injury that kept me in a leg immobilizer for the better part of my first semester of college.

By the time I got my own place, it was pasta and pizza nearly every night, and let's not forget the Mountain Dew that kept me up for those late night cramming sessions. (Not to knock Mountain Dew. I totally have a stash in my fridge at home right now that I treat myself to now and again.) I had created a monster!

By the time I reached 154 pounds in my senior year, I decided it was time for a diet. At the time, the South Beach Diet was somewhat new on the scene and had been pitched to me with great enthusiasm. Thus began my diet journey in the fall of 2008.
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