101 Followers, My Ups and Downs, Photos

Hello everyone!  Hope you're all having a happy and healthy week so far. I just wanted to take a moment to say a HUGE Thank You to all of my followers who read my blog everyday and who always give me great feedbacks and comments.  I honestly think that this journey would be ten times harder without all of your support, so thanks for sticking with me!


If you read my blog and you want me to look at your blog leave a comment with a link to your blog on it, so that I can check it out and maybe follow you on your journey as well.  At the beginning of blogging I was always looking for new blogs, but I stopped and focused on my blog and catching up with other blogs that I read, but I am always looking for a few new reads to add to my dashboard. :)


I hope some of you enjoyed the wedding post earlier today!?  I am going to be updating you all on my wedding and my weight loss journey to get into my wedding dress.  I want this blog to be about losing weight and being healthy, but it is also about me and my life and right now my life consists of losing weight, finding a grad school, buying our first house and planning a wedding.  I hope you don't mind having some of my real life sprinkled in along with the weight loss.


So, today I was looking at my photos on my computer trying to find some new ones to post on my blog and I started to look at some older photos from 2007.  This is the year that I went to Italy.  I was at my thinnest weight as an adult while I was in Italy and I look at the pictures and I am green with envy.  I want to look like that again.  I honestly scrolled through all of the photos and thought, wow.  I look really good in these pictures.  I had so much energy and looked so happy!


I need to explain part of this because I am happy right now.  I am in love and have friends and family around me and a great job.  So, I am definitely not miserable or depressed.  I am however, as happy as I can be while I am overweight.  This may sound like a bold statement.  It is true though, I am generally a positive person and I look for the good in others and try to find the positive in most situations.  I would like to think that I seem very happy even though I really want to change my body.


In fact, my future mother in law told me at Christmas that after she read my blog she was shocked that I was unhappy being overweight.  She explained that she thought that I was confident and comfortable with my body and that she never guessed that I wanted to change my body.  I sure had her fooled.  In all honesty I think I wear fat well.  It is not to say that I look good at the weight I am in, but rather that I come off as being okay with being overweight.  She said that she thought I was extremely happy with my life and with my weight because of the way I carried myself and the fact that I would wear my swimsuit and short skirts and appear to love my body.


This is a problem for me.  I don't want to be comfortable being overweight.  I think being comfortable being fat or appearing to be comfortable with my weight is as harmful to my health as actually being overweight.  You see, if I am overweight and I look like I am okay with it and everyone else thinks that I am okay with it then I am more likely to stay that way or to fall back into that pattern.  I don't want fat to feel comfortable.  I don't want sweatpants to hide my bulge.  I don't want jeans in a range of sizes so if one pair is to tight I can just move up.  I don't want to be the highest number at the plus size store.  I don't want to be the fat girl who is okay with being fat.


I long to be the girl who left the U.S. and moved to Italy for 6 months.  To feel great in my body even if it wasn't my ideal weight.  I want people to think of me as more than just the bubbly, funny and entertaining overweight girl.  I want my personality to shine and my looks to match it.  I want to shop wherever I want to and have many options.  I want to look at a smiling picture of myself and know that I was happy and not just posing for the camera.  I want to be free of my fat once and for all.


I have added two new pages to my blog at the top.  One is called Heavy and one is called Light.  There are many pictures of me at both times in my life.  I really want to put them out there for me as a reminder, but also for all of you so you can see my ups and downs through photos and see what I am working towards.  The heavy section features me at the heaviest weight and they are difficult for me to look at.  They remind me of where I came from and where I never want to be again.  The light section features me at my thinnest and is a reminder of what I am striving for.


I also want to start sharing some music related stuff with you because music is a HUGE part of my life.  So, I will tell you my 5 favorite work out songs.  They are all ones that make me really push myself.  The music is a mix of pop, hip hop and rap.  The one in bold below features some foul language, so if you're not into that skip that one.


1. Mark Ronson & The Business International- Bang Bang Bang
2. Calabria 2006- Enur featuring Natasha
3. Major Tom-Shiny Toy Guns
4. Play Your Part (Part 2)- Girl Talk
5. Black Eyed Peas- The Time