Introduction

I am Gigi. I am 39 years old, soon to be 40. I am a nursing student, a wife, mother, and woman. Not necessarily in that order though. I am also overweight. I am 5 feet 10 inches tall and weigh 240 pounds.

When I was young, I was blessed with a very fast metabolism, although at times it seemed also like it was a curse. I could, and did, eat whatever I wanted to, and gained weight. I was freakishly tall, reaching my full height at age 12 or 13, and barely weighed 100 pounds. At the time I met the man I would later marry, I weighed maybe 125 pounds. I used to take a lot of crap and get teased for being too skinny.

Sometime around the age of 25-26, though... my metabolism didn't just slow down, it seems to have exhausted itself and come to a complete stop. As the years passed and my physical activity levels decreased, although I *never* really exercised per se, the weight started to pack on. I had a brief moment, around the time of the birth of my daughter 10 years (and some change) ago, where I was at my optimum weight... around 150-165 pounds, but the weight kept coming, with each new decade, each new stressful situation, crisis, etc, taking its toll.

So here I sit now, nearly 100 pounds above that ideal weight. I am noticing all of the aches and pains that come with getting older, and also with being overweight, and I don't like what I am becoming. I am also about to start nursing school, and I feel like a hypocrite for working as a health professional, yet living so unhealthily myself. The time has come to stop whining about it, to do more than lament the fact that I have gotten fat. It is time to act.

This blog is a part of that. I plan to use this blog to help me lose weight, and become healthy again. Entries in here will be to document various things. I will document any and all exercises and workouts that I do, I will document the foods that I eat, and if I have a recipe that I particularly like... I may post it as well. I will also most likely document my emotional state. How I am feeling about various aspects of this attempt to get my life and health back, maybe trying to talk myself out of being sad, scared, or discouraged. And of course I hope to have entries about how great I am feeling as the pounds go away and my confidence appears.

I am very serious about this... I'd like to have lost a chunk of weight... maybe 10-15 pounds by the time I start school, and to continue to lose as I go through nursing school. My end goal is to be at the weight I was when my daughter Sophia was born... around 160 pounds. That's a total weight loss of about 80 pounds... *gulp*

It's a long haul, and seeing such a large damn number is pretty discouraging in and of itself. But I am going to do my damndest to make it happen.