In high school I wanted to lose weight and get healthier. My sophomore year I weighed about 116 pounds. Through minor portion control and an exercise routine I got down to about 98 pounds. My mom got nervous when I got below 100 pounds but I didn't lose anymore after that. I started slowly gaining the weight back when I started college. I got the "freshman 15." And every year I'd put on another five pounds.

I did lose a little bit of weight in 1999. My mom complimented me on my new size and I felt good but I wasn't able to keep going with it. I was working nights at Friendly's. I kept weird hours with my schedule and I ate ice cream and other fatty foods late at night. Then in 2006 I reached my highest weight at 135 pounds. I found this out when I was sick and I went to the doctors' office March of that year. I decided then and there I needed to do something about this. I wasn't exercising and I was eating what I wanted when I wanted to. Bad combination. Everyone has that moment where they get a wake up call about their weight. This was my wake up call. And I wasn't about to ignore it.  In May of 2006 I started an exercise routine that was quite challenging. I started running during the summer months. I had a treadmill which meant I could run indoors but without air conditioning it was still quite difficult to get motivated on certain days. I would wake up at 5 am every week day and run. At the time I was working eleven hour days. I would run two to three miles in the morning and then two-three miles in the evening five days a week. Then I'd run at least four miles on Saturday and Sunday. I was able to make a commitment to it and over two years later, I am still going strong. YAY!  I lost a total of 25 pounds by August/September of 2006. I started seeing the biggest differences in both my waist, and my face. Currently I'm about five pounds down from that weight. So I lost about 30 pounds in total. I'm at my lowest weight since 1998. And I feel amazing!! I also noticed that I haven't really been sick since I was at my heaviest either. Its been an amazing change in my life, and I'm so happy I didn't ignore my wake up call back in 2006.