You May Have Fallen, But You CAN Get Up!

If there is one thing that every person on the Earth understands, it is hardship.  Every person no matter who they are has endured hardship of some kind.  So how did the hardship I was dealt affect my life...I fell off the wagon...face first...into the dirt.  

After losing approximately 80 pounds, I had transformed from a 266 pound, unhealthy college student to a 180 pound student teacher.  With life beginning to look brighter and my future at my fingertips, I was trucking along on my journey.  However, life was about to throw me a curve ball right out of left field.  My parent's divorce came as a complete blow to everything that I knew as stability.  You never expect for your family to crumble right before your eyes.  A few months after my parents' separation, I graduated from college and moved to Flowood to begin my first year teaching.  I felt torn in half because I knew that I had left my sister in McComb to deal with the emotions of the divorce alone.  Battling the emotions of a crumbling family and struggling to become the teacher I wanted to be, the pounds began to slowly creep back.  Because of the stress I was dealing with, I was encouraged by my doctors to take medicine to help slow my mind from running 1,000 miles per minute.  It was during this time that my drive to lose weight went down and the weight on the scale went up.  Before I realized it, I was sitting at 225 pounds and was completely blind to the fact that I had a problem AGAIN!  I refused to look in the mirror and see my problem.  I knew I was having to buy clothes in "my section" again, but I would excuse it with thoughts of self pity, sadness, or anger.  Then, I hit the rock bottom day that would change my mindset into changing my LIFESTYLE not just my diet.  It was early one April morning, and I was getting ready for my best friend's baby shower.  I put on 4 pairs of jeans that didn't fit, until I finally located a pair that fit...but fit very snug.  Then it was on to shirts...disaster struck.  I tried many different combinations of tops, but nothing worked.  That's when I broke down.  Looking in the mirror, I realized that I had allowed the circumstances of my life to determine the outcome of my life.  I wasn't controlling my life; life was controlling me.  With the realization, I picked myself up, dusted myself off, and vowed that today would be the day that I would look back on as the day I took complete control.  I had lost the first 80 pounds after being prompted by others, but now standing in my room looking at the person I had become, I was going to lose it for ME...no one else! After the baby shower, I immediately went to Target and bought 3 lb. weights and Jillian Michaels' 30 Day Shred.  I went home, changed my clothes, put in the DVD, and began the most gruesome workout that my body had experienced in a very long time!  As I lay gasping for air on the floor of my bedroom, I called my mother to say, "I think I bought the DVD for skinny people!"  Her encouragement, as well as others, and my will to succeed ultimately proved to be the driving force behind the lifelong journey that I am now on.  In the words of Natalie Grant, "He's gonna take your pain.  He's gonna take your doubt.  He's gonna bring it all together...bring it all together for good."  How true those words are...living in this moment right now, I realize that my life and the hardships I faced when my parents divorced were all key in getting me to where I am today.  My relationships with my mom, my dad, and my sister are better than they have ever been, and I am so blessed by "new family" that I have gained.  

So why am I sharing this part of my journey with you?  I'm so glad you asked!  It is to say this...if you are on this weight loss journey, there will be ups and downs.  There will be bad days.  There may be times when you backslide so far that you think you've gone too far.  No matter how hard your fall from your wagon, get up, get ready, and get back on because this journey is not a diet...it's a lifestyle!

Picture from the Baby Shower That Got Me Back on the Wagon