Phew!

This is your basic hello!

I'm starting something, and for the first time, I really feel like I can do it.

Introductions are in order, I think. Hello! My name is Audrey. I'm twenty-four (eek!), a college graduate and at the beginning of a really big adventure. There's no easy way to say this. Deep breath. I've been over-weight nearly my entire life. The story behind that is complicated, but not all that unique. I was abused as a little girl by someone I couldn't really get away from, and my best defense was to put on weight. So I did. And the abuse stopped. And it made me feel safe. And for a long time I was afraid that if I lost the weight, that even though that man was long gone, some other man would come along and hurt me the same way. So I stayed heavy, and I felt safe--safe and sad and scared, all at the same time.

It took me a long time to come to this point. A lot of soul-searching, a lot of false starts and stops. Back-sliding. Not taking care of myself, because there was always someone else who needed my time, my energy, my everything MORE. Something so common, I think, in a lot of people. We feel it's better to invest our time in other people. That it makes us selfless and that that's the best way to be. Being giving is great, don't stop that.

But I guess what it comes down to is that no one needs me more than I do. I need me. I need me to be happy, to be healthy. To feel well about myself. To look myself in the mirror each morning and like the person staring back at me.

I started this at my heaviest. At 5'9", I weighed 242 pounds. Two hundred and forty-two pounds. That's nearly 100 pounds OVER what I should weigh, at my height and skeletal structure.

As of today, I'm down to 202.5 pounds. Now, I'm not doing this to obsess over a number. I want to be healthy, not see myself as a number. That being said, I cannot begin to say how encouraging it is to go to the scale and see that this week, I lost 2.5 pounds.

How did I do it? How did I lose almost forty pounds?

Running. Running, and, of course, improving my diet. No, not dieting. I don't believe in cutting out carbs or limiting starches or not eating whatever the latest fad is. Just improving what I do eat, while still eating what I enjoy.

But those are stories for another day. For tonight, I guess all I have left to say is that I thought I was one of those people who couldn't. I couldn't lose weight, I couldn't do the things I really wanted to do (more on this later) because people would look at me and judge me. I was one big STOP sign.

But I'm not. Not anymore. I can. I can do whatever I put my mind to--and the best part is, anyone can. Even you. Especially you. We all can realize our potential. We just need to start trying. Even if we don't believe it yet, taking the first steps--pretending to believe, even if we do second guess ourselves--is the hardest hurdle over which to leap. You can do it. I'm doing it now.

So on that note, Hello. I'm Audrey. I'm hoping I can get to know you, and together we can make this journey. Big breath. That's where it really starts. With one deep, big breath.