Hello :)
I will start off by introducing myself. My name is Rachael Holman. I am 22 years old. I am married to my very best friend, Cory and we live a wonderful life in a little farm house in Tennessee :) Not parents yet, and we hope to keep it that way for a while! Lover of all things Disney... and to top it all off I'm a ginger ;)
one little rule for this blog: we will not use the F word... yes. the F word that ends with a T and has an A in the middle... nope. it is simply "fluffy" :)
That is pretty much all you need to know about me. Other than the reason i have started this blog, It is mostly for me, but I am hoping that at the end of this life change i am making that someone will read this and want to change their life, too. That I can inspire someone who has battled with their weight for most of their teenage life or even their entire life and make them want to get up and do something about it instead of sitting there crying about it and feeling like poop after every meal. So yes, that is what this blog is going to be about. My weight loss journey. and I could not be more excited to share it with you all... whoever you are :) I am still learning all of this and dont know exactly what I am doing yet, but that's okay. a life change like this takes time! I signed up for weight watchers last night and have not been this excited about something in a long long time!! Which makes me even more excited!!!! lol its funny,.,, ive heard about weight watchers my entire life. My mom did it when i was in 9th grade if i remember correctly... so 2007? she lost 32 lbs. which for her was all she needed to lose & she looked awesome. she has begged me to do it since. she gained a lot of her weight back and its really only been in the past couple of years that she has... so i know this plan works. for it to take someone years to gain all of their weight back?! not many (well, any really) weight loss plans work like that. and trust me i know. ive tried ACE and the "saba cleanse" and yes it works, but does it last? yeah if you take a pill everyday. i'm not trying to bash those who have lost weight on ACE. i think any type of weight loss is great... i just know for me that i can not do those type things. as soon as i go off of them, i gain it all... PLUS some... back! its all about the difference in the person if you ask me... and i'm sorry, but taking a pill everyday just to keep my weight off is just something i am not interested in.
I have struggled with how fluffy i am since i was in middle school. I am 4'11" & 1/2. so you can imagine that any type of weight gain shows UP on me. bloating, 5 lbs, 4 lbs... it is gonna show!!!! I weighed about 99 lbs when i was in 6th grade. i remember thinking "oh my gosh that is almost 100lbs..." my mom told us that when she got married at 24 that she was 107lbs. so pushing 100 at 11 was a big deal to me, if my mom was that little when she was 24 i should not even be CLOSE to 100 at 11, right?! i honestly remember thinking those things.
Time rocked on and the summer before my jr year I was at my biggest at that time. I weighed probably close to 140.. no that is not big at all, but when you're 4'11... it's too big. My sister was getting married and earlier in the year we got our bridesmaid dresses. I got a size 10, and as most of you know you have to get a size or 2 about what you really are... but I had every intention on losing weight and fitting in that dress! It never happened... the wedding was a week or 2 away and the dress was even tighter. I tried gurtle after gurtle.. i couldn't even breathe and it was still too tight. So thank the good Lord above, they had my size and we were able to exchange... I was at my biggest. My senior year I actually looked good at my size. Still fluffy, but nothing near what I had looked like my past high school years. Just after grad I started dating my future hubby :) by the next year I was at about 150. The biggest I had ever been... the march. Of 2011 we had decided to go to the beach. I made my mind up that I was not gonna be fluffy at the beach I was gonna be skinny! And I started doing crunches every night. Planking, jumping jacks, squats.. little things like that every night before bed! I got up to 100 crunches before the beach! I didnt have much of a belly any more! Of course... you go on Vaca and stop.. and never start back. Though I didn't gain much back, I still wasn't where I wanted to be.. I mean I was wanting to get married the next year and I wanted to be at a good 120-130! That December I got engaged :) went to the dr and he gave me birth control... which made me lose my appetite really well, but also gave me 1000 other symptoms!!!! So I changed. When we got married I was still at 150.. when I got hired on at my job I lost down a little due to stress. Moved within the company and got really comfortable with where I was at. And that is where the most of this started. I started gaining... and I was up to 160... we went to Disney World for our anniversary & I was miserable. You would think that would be enough motivation... nope. In October I was up to 170.. we went to the beach again... think thst would make me want to lose? Well yeah... did it happen?? No. And I was at 180. Once again we went to Disney ;) this time with the whole family and I really thought that I would lose the weight. Soooooooo determined, right?? I wish. That was the past may. And now, when it's all said and done... I'm officially at 190. The biggest ever. And I definitely look & feel every bit of that 190 lbs. What really got me started wanting to lose was this past Saturday night. We went to eat for a friend's birthday and went to Target afterwards. I had been eyeing this super cute dress they had and thought that I was just gonna go ahead and buy it. I changed my mind and decided to go ahead & try it on so I wouldn't have to deal with bringing it back. Target runs small so instead of my usual XL (do you know how much i hate that size?!) i got 2X.. it makes me want to puke that that size is even an option! Anyways, I went into the dressing room & tried it on... i looked huge. pregnant... i am not exaggerating whatsoever. I really do look at least 5 months preggo in the picture. once i get further down this journey i will share this picture with you all. I decided right there and then that i WAS going to do something about this. and soon. no more putting this off!! My mom had been doing Weight Watchers for about a month and she had lost 6lbs and was super excited. giving me all this info on WW and all this junk... just like she always had :) (she is now at this date down to 8lbs down!! which is awesome. she has made her 10% goal!). What had really gotten my attention was my Aunt losing weight. She had lost 7lbs at the time (she is down 8lbs now as well!) and was super excited. My aunt was the weight loss guru. You name, she tried it, had taken it and probably tried it again!! haha. she hardly ever lost weight. my mom (again like always) had told her all those years ago that she needed to do WW and aunt tammy just would not have it. FINALLY after 7+ years, she went with mom and signed up... and like i mentioned before is down 8 lbs. if you guys only knew how big of a deal that is yall would all be on this band wagon, too! haha :)
so here it is. my start of something new :) my weight loss journey for you all to follow!! I hope you enjoy it. I know I am going to!
Fair winds followers!
♥-Rae
