ADVENTURE AWAITS

This is my first post and I just want to introduce what my journey so far.

Since I was in high school I struggled with my weight and it only got worse after I got out of high school. I gained so much weight I capped off at 325 lbs. I was going into my last semesters in college and about to face the real world. I was accepted into the Disney College Program at the Walt Disney World in the fall of 2009. I walked and worked a lot on my college program. I started dropping weight and I started to notice that I was more confident in myself, from June 2009 to January 2010 I lost a total of 60lbs.

You figure that would be a great start to weight loss and it would be a cake walk from there right? Nope. Once I got back home I went from being really active to being stationary. I started to gain weight back quickly and I could figure out how to stop it because like most people I like food but I wasn’t walking as much as I was. I gained back to where when I graduated from SHSU in May 2011 I weighed 280. Once again I got a chance to go back to Disney as an intern and I knew this was my last chance to get the weight under control. I walked a lot again and got down to 243. End of weight going back up? Nope.

When I came back home in 2012 from my internship I didn’t have a job still, I was stressed out and the only option was to go back to school and start the process of going for my Masters. I decided to switch from being a Communication background to going for Business. I went to get a 2 year degree at a local community college and that summer I weighed in at 262.

One day my mom comes to me and says, “I signed us up for a two mile race.” I honestly thought my mom was crazy. Me walk two miles? It seemed impossible. July 4th came and so did the race. I walked a 18 min/mil. I was in pain, out of breath and I never felt so good in my life. Announcements for awards were made and we were referred to as athletes. I never thought of myself as an athlete, yet here was this person saying I was. The rest is history. I completed over 20 - 5Ks, 2 - 10Ks and in Feb of 2015 I completed the Austin Half Marathon...I was slower than a turtle in peanut butter in winter time but I ran it all. I got more daring and completed my first Spartan Race in May 2015. They say at the end of the race “you’ll know,” and I know what I am capable of. After all that I’m thankful for that first race. My weight has been going up and down since and right now I am at 228. I have a goal by the end of this year to be under 200lbs.

Last year in April I picked up Archery to help with stress from getting into Grad School and I started competing. I worked hard and won Gold that August at the Games of Texas which qualified me for the State Games of America in Nebraska, which I recently completed and came home with a Gold and Silver medal.