About My Journey

I am 5'3 and my weight has fluctuated throughout my whole life. In high school I was at my thinnest weighing only 118 and wearing size 1 jeans. The sad part of that is that even back then I thought I was fat. I have never had a good body image and I think that was one of the major causes for all of the weight fluctuations. After high school I went through some hard times and ended up gaining a lot of weight. I then weighed what I thought was my heaviest ever, 155 pounds. During this time I started working at a very physical job and lost most of the weight not even realizing it. I then weighed about 130 pounds and looked great.(pic: bottom) I stayed about the same weight for quite a while bouncing back and forth between the 130s and 140s and then I met my future husband. :) You have heard of "happy fat" right? Well that's what I call what happened to my body! My now husband and I would always go out to eat and out drinking when we first started dating. I didn't even think about how unhealthy it was because I was having fun and was happy. This went on for about a year or so. I just kept eating and not exercising and didn't even care. It wasn't until March of 2010 that I tipped the scales at 167 (pic: middle) and was shocked at how I let myself get. During this time I had recently found out that I was pregnant. My husband and I were so excited! I thought, "Yeah, I gained a lot of weight and probably should do something about it, but now I NEED to gain weight!" and I ate as much as I possibly could. Well sadly we found out just a couple of weeks later that I had lost the baby. It was a very rough time, but it was also an awakening. I felt to blame for the loss. I thought that maybe my body wasn't healthy enough to hold and grow a human life. I felt disgusted with myself and made a promise that I was going to do something about it, I had to! And I did.....
I started out counting calories and trying to exercise a little bit. I struggled A LOT at first, I just kept wanting to eat! I somehow still lost ten pounds and was down to 157, it was a good start. My mom then told me about Weight Watchers and how easy it is and how it is not even a diet it is a lifestyle change. A lifestyle change? That is exactly what I needed! So I started the amazing program of Weight Watchers and started exercising my butt off (literally) and here I am about 4 months later and weighing in at 144 pounds! I have lost a total of 23 pounds since my lost pregnancy! I am very proud of myself and am continuing to push forward. I recently took a health screening at work and realized that I am in all of the healthy ranges for body fat and waist size! It would have been awful to see what those stats were back in March! I am almost down to a normal BMI, 3 pounds away to be exact. My first goal is to weigh 135 which is only 9 pounds away and my ultimate goal is to weigh 125 pounds and then we will see! I am currently doing a running program called Couch to 5k. It is a great beginners program to running and anyone can do it.

Here is the link: http://www.coolrunning.com/engine/2/2_3/181.shtml

IT IS FREE! :)

I decided to start this blog and share my official "before picture" from this point (pic: top) so that I can share my journey with anyone who is interested and I hope to inspire others to become healthy along the way. Having a great body would be awesome, but being ultimately healthy would be even better and that is what I am striving for.
Thank you so much for reading my blog!

Love Always,

Jessica Jeannine Clark