It Is Almost Time To Run My 6th Marathon

The last 6 months have been full of ups and downs.


One thing that has helped me, stay sane is running.


Running never lets me down. I have said it before, and I will say it again, if I am having a bad day, when things seem unclear or unsettling, a nice run seems to help. When I am out running I feel alive. It calms me down. When you are alone out there on the open road or trail nothing feels as good a solid run does.

This weekend I am excited to run the KeyBank Vermont City Marathon!!!

What I am not excited about is everything else that has been going on this week. It has been a stressful week here and then to top it all off I am sick.

Not just a little cold sick either :( I finally got to the doctor today and I have a sinus infection and both of my ears are infected. I did get some antibiotics, so I am hoping they do their work and by Sunday I will be feeling better.

I was hoping to go for a shiny new PR in Vermont this weekend. But now I do not even think it will be possible. All I can do is go out there and plan on one thing:

Having fun.

I will be rocking bib # 3091 on Sunday and dancing and singing as I run my 6th marathon this year!!

I have truly come to love running marathons. For me it is a good distance. It challenges me just enough and keeps me going. It forces me to maintain a level of fitness. And when I am running the marathon, I feel so strong. I come alive around mile 20, once it hits then I start to feel even stronger. I kick into action mode and really have to dig in and finish strong. I love every single minute of it.

One of Biggest Supporters

I think it goes without being said, this journey would be impossible if I was trying to do it all alone.

In fact I know I would not be where I am without a few special people in my life. They have been there since day one. Since the first time I decided to get healthy they have been pushing and helping and just being there to support me. It takes a support system to lose weight and no matter what, you will face adversity yes but you will always have some one, hopefully a few special people whom you can turn to.

There is one woman in particular, who has been by my side well since I was 18 months old and she was born :)

My little sister :) My best friend :)

We became even closer when we both became mothers.

And when I started my journey.....

She was always there for all my big firsts!

She stood outside in the snow with 2 toddlers waiting to watch me cross the finish line of my first half marathon!

When I celebrated losing 100 pounds at Weight Watchers!!! :)

When I crossed the finish line in Philadelphia finishing my first marathon:

She is there always. Cheering for me, encouraging me, and keeping me going.

It was Jessica whose house I used to run to when training, she lives 10 miles away, so it works out perfect. I run to her house she fuels me back up and sends me back out. Even in the snow, she looked at me and said, go back out there and run strong. She knows me.

It was great this year to run Boston and have her there cheering and get to stop and see her.

She is probably one of the few people in my life who no matter what I can always count on. I am grateful to God for her being a part of my life.

She takes care of my daughter when I go off and do my crazy runs, she supports my every decision with a smile and words of encouragment. I am quite sure that if it was not for her, I may not be as strong as I am today, I may not be able to run like I do.

So thank you Jessica, for being such a big supporter of me and this journey. It is people like you who are in my corner fighting with me everyday, that make it all possible.

The Truth

I took this picture on a run one day and the fog reminds me of the truth.

The truth is sometimes  ugly.

Truth can be messy, complicated, emotional, and all out frustrating.

I have a hard time telling the truth sometimes. Not that I go around lying, more that I live in this world of positivity and I feel if I show my vulnerability or weakness, then people will go back to judging me.

You see, when you weigh 275 pounds you get judged. People look down on you, people do not notice you. And unfortunately no matter how smart you are, it sometimes goes unseen due to the way you look. People are judges, basing their opinions solely on the outward appearance of a person. When you are depressed on a daily basis people stop noticing. And if you are really good at hiding your emotions, you can fool most of the people around you into thinking you are fine and that everything is ok, even when it is not.

But the past few weeks have been ugly. And I feel like in this picture up there, I am in a fog. Facing stress at home being a single mom and trying to do it all, work stress, school work stress, and frustration from not having time to do the things I used to be able to do. It all seems to be catching up to me. Sometimes, life seems impossible. Sometimes, choices seem difficult.

And just like that, before I realize it, I am backing myself into a corner again. I am sitting there hiding in my closet crying and feeling alone all over again. I am regressing back to old habits just to get myself by because I feel hopeless.

The problem, the truth of it all is I am an addict still. I cope with excess of something. That is the ugly truth. I used to smoke cigerettes and drink when I was stressed. It worked for me when I was in my late teens and even as I was 21-22ish. Then I realized it was not going to help me so I stopped doing that and moved onto a new obsession, binging. Food. Yep I got addicted pretty quickly and just like other addictions it took me over.

Then I got healthy 2.5 years ago, I took a firm stance on changing my life style, and it worked for the most part. I turned to a new obsession of running and exercising and trying to eat healthy. And it worked, on most days I coped fine. I lost my weight, I got into a healthy zone and I was ok.

But lately, the urge to binge has come over me again and again. It haunts me. Sometimes there are days when I do it and then face the guilt of it for days on end. Some days I am strong enough to not do it too. But over all, it is just frustrating. So I have to keep fighting with this. I have to keep working on over coming this obstacle in my life. It seems daunting when I think about it but I have to think about it in order to move on and let it go.

The truth is, I hate myself still for being weak. I want to be this strong pillar who stands up against all adversity in her life and is tall and proud. The ugly part behind that truth is, I have not yet accepted the fact that it is impossible to be strong on your own 100% of the time. You need help, you need friends, you need someone in your corner fighting with you. But the hardest part about it is knowing when to let people in and ask for help.

So that is my truth talk to myself this week, learn when to reach out and ask for help. Even when I feel like the fog is surrounding me and there is no escape, I have to  realize that it will not make me weak, less loved, or make the people around me mad, rather it will be better for them to know what is going on in my life so they can help.

Becoming A Mom

The day I found out I was going to be a mother, was one of the scariest and happiest days of my life.

I will never forget, I called my sister and told her the news first, she got excited. I was terrified and she calmed me down. It was a day I will always remember. I made a choice that day, that no matter what I did, no matter what happened, I would become a mom.

I did not want to be a mother, I wanted to be a mom. The kind of mom who was there for every single moment of my child's life. I promised that tiny baby growing inside of me that no matter what I would always be there to nourish them and care for them. That I took up the responsibility to protect them and keep them safe. And from that moment on I fell in love.

I will never forget the first time I saw that tiny baby swimming on the ultra sound screen, I cried a little bit that day. It became real, and the bigger the baby grew, the more my heart did.

When I found out I was having a girl, I got so excited. I went out that day and bought her first pink dress. Clearly I was planning to have a diva on my hands :)

What I did not plan for, the things I did not think would happen is this:

Becoming a Mom, meant changing my lifestyle. For the first time in years I had a renewed strength. I had a new spirit within myself. I knew that I wanted to give my daughter the best possible chance at a life. And not just an ordinary life, I want her to have a great life. One that I was not able to have. To do this, I knew I had to be great. I knew that if I wanted a child to strive for extra ordinary that I had to set that example.

And for me, that is what becoming a Mom gave me. It gave me the strength to stand up for myself. It gave me the will to fight. She, this tiny little child I had come to love and cherish needed me to stand up  and fight for her happiness, for her life. I knew that I wanted her to be a fighter. So I became one first.

So today, like all days I will hug and kiss her. I will tell her how much I love her. I will hold her in my arms and rock her to sleep singing her favorite songs. And I will be a Mom. The kind of Mom that I wish I had. The kind of Mom that I want her to be one day.

That is what becoming a Mom has been all about for me. It has been the best thing that could have ever happened to me. One day I will tell my daughter my story, I will always remind her that she saved me. It is the truth. Before she came I was walking down a dark path of different struggles. But the moment she entered into my life she made me want to change. She made me want to get healthy and change my life. She pulls me on to the right path and forces me out of bed every single day. For her I am eternally grateful. I know that she was sent to me from God to save me.

Happy Mother's Day to all the wonderful women in my world who have inspired me along the way. I hope you had a wonderful day.

My Podcast At The Half Size Me

For me it has been quite a week of sharing my story!!!

I am both honored and privelaged to have gotten interviewed by Heather at The Half Size Me via a podcast!

Please take some time if you want to know more about me and my journey and have a listen. I talked about losing weight, using running and the paleo life style to improve my performance and making paleo work while following Weight Watchers.

I also shared my experience being plus sized and pregnant, something I have never gotten to do before the interview.

I enjoyed talking to Heather, she is a great inspiring mom who has lost 170 pounds!!!! SO you should definetly take a moment and go check out this awesome website!

Through the Tunnel

When you make a choice to live your life differently than you have been for years, it can feel like you are in a dark tunnel.

Photo Credit

I like this picture because from the outside the tunnel is nice. You see the green trees and the sun is clearly shining.

It reminds me of how my life was before I made the choice to make changes. From the outside, I could smile, wear it and work on making myself believe that it was really true. I could mutter through the bad days and when the few sunny days were there I would use them to justify all of the bad ones.

Truthfully, in the back of my mind I knew that changes needed to be made. But those changes, I could not see them. I did not see it at all. All those changes were difficult to envision, the same way the end of a tunnel is. No one wants to walk into the tunnel, no one wants to leave the pretend sunshine outside they have built upon.

The problem is, at some point you have to walk through the tunnel to get to the other side. Changing your lifestyle is the same way. I have to walk through darkness to get to the light.

I am not perfect. I am not "fixed". I did lose 120 pounds. I did train my body to run marathons. I did all of those things while in the dark tunnel. But I am not through the other side yet. All of those changes, they were physical, they are easy to change. I focused on changing them because I could. I could measure my food, I could schedule runs, I could light weights. I could do all of those things with ease. And that is what I have done. For the last 2 and a half years I have built my life around physical changes, life style changes.

But I did not work on the inside. The root of why I needed to make those changes. Why was I so obese? How did I get to weigh 275 pounds in the first place? That is all mental. That was a mentality that I allowed myself to hold within myself for many years.

Depression, maybe? Anxiety, possibly? Both. I am not sure about the "what" of the causing of it.

What I am working on now is the how.

How can I over come my inner demons. How can I work on being me more and celebrating my life even more. How can I stop allowing myself to put up emotional walls and keep people out. How can I let myself let go of everything in the past that held me back and brought me down. How can I get through this tunnel and darkness that has enveloped my mind.

I will keep working on this, I will keep moving relentlessly forward because I have made a decision.

I have decided that I will never ever give up. That the distance I have traveled over the last 2.5 years is far, but that I have so much farther to keep going and I cannot get there without help. I am learning to ask for it when I need it and open myself up more. I am trying. And at the end of the day I have to pray that it will be enough, and I will come out of this tunnel and walk into the real sunlight at the end.

One thing that is helping is reading the bible. A few of my close friends have helped me return back to God and I will close this post with a passage from a Psalm that I keep reading over and over this week, it is helping me.

The Lord is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer;

  my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge,

  my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.

                                                      Psalm 18:2

I Am In the June Issue of Woman's Day Magazine!

It seems surreal.

I was approached a few months ago by someone from Woman's Day Magazine and asked about my journey. Then I was honored when they asked me to be interviewed for a story in their magazine.

I mean, me in a magazine?!?

I thought it seemed strange, I struggle still with this whole journey and how far I have come. Really in my mind, I am just a girl who was tired of being obese and tired of feeling lost and hopeless. I feel lucky, grateful, that something inside of me finally woke up and said hey, we can do this, we can get healthy.

So now my mission has been to spread the word that anyone can do this. AND so when I was asked to share my story for Woman's Day I was excited!!!!

The JUNE Issue of Woman's Day will feature my story on page 132 :) 

So make sure you check it out when it hits news stands soon!!!! I know some people who recieve it at home already have it :)

I cannot explain how it felt to open the advanced copy when I recieved it a few weeks ago and see myself on the pages of a magazine. At first I just read in awe, then I looked at the pictures and remembered back to a different time.

I remembered a girl, who used to buy the weight loss edition of People's Magazine, and gaze at the lucky people who had lost over 100 pounds and just be envious. I never thought real people like that existed. I never ever in a million years thought that the day I decided I would go to Weight Watchers, that it would be the plan that finally worked for me. I just did not know at that time what would all happen in the year to follow.

I never knew how much I would be able to run after 6 months into my weight loss. I never knew lining up at that 5K for the first time a year later I would be lining up to run a whole marathon. But the main point I want to bring home is, I kept trying.

I never gave up. I still do not. Everytime I hit one goal, I look ahead to another. I keep focusing on my future and being the best possible healthy version of me. This keeps me going. This keeps me maintaining a healthy weight, and living the life I knew I was always meant to live.

Thank you everyone for all your support, and encouragement. It keeps me going, keeps me sharing this journey, and I am so happy to be in this magazine so that I can keep sharing the positive energy, the passion I have for believing in yourself, and working hard and making dreamns come true.