In The Beginning, There Was Fat

Well, I suppose we should start with me and who I am right now. My name is Danielle and I am 25 years old. Above is a picture of me shortly after my daughter was born in 2010. In this photo I weighed 194 pounds (before I got pregnant I weighed 170) and I haven't lost any weight since. Using the Hamwi formula, my healthy weight should lie between 123 pounds and 154 pounds. Needless to say I am grossly overweight. To make things perfectly clear I am not embarrassed by the way I look and I don't think that people should feel bad about themselves because of what their scale says. That being said, I know that if I put forth some serious effort to change up my lifestyle and lose some serious weight that I will look better and feel better in general. And this is my proof.

This is a photo of me shortly after my wedding in August of 2008. I weighed in at about 155 pounds, which is pretty close to my healthy weight. I think that if I were about 10-15 pounds lighter or maybe just more all over tone I would be at a perfect weight for me.

So, if you haven't guessed, this blog is kind of my journey through weight loss. I am going to be dieting and exercising my weigh down the scale and I feel that keeping what is essentially a public journal of my struggles, successes, favorite healthy recipes, etc  will keep me pushing to lose weight because I am really not into public humiliation. And that may sound harsh, but I've been saying that I am going to lose weight for 2 years now, and it's time I followed through with my plans. I want to be happier when I look into the mirror, I want to fit into my favorite pants, and most of all I want to be able to keep up with my daughter and I want her to have a mom she can be proud of.

My 25th birthday was yesterday (though it still feels like today as I haven't gone to sleep yet) and my first major goal in weight loss is to get to my pre-pregnancy weight of approximately 170 pounds before January 1, 2013. My second major goal is to make it approximately 150 pounds by my birthday, September 22, next year. I'm sure there will be tons of other smaller goals, but this is kind of an intro to my blog so I just wanted to get the big goals out there.

So basically, this is the first day of the rest of my life. And yeah, I know exactly how cheesy that sounds and I really don't care.