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.

Pittsburgh Marathon Race Recap



I usually wait to write up race recaps but I am just flowing with excitement today so I will take some time and do it now :)

Today I ran the Pittsburgh Marathon

Going into this race I had mixed emotions. First, I was concerned about the hills, there were quite a few here. I went out on Friday night when I got here for an 8 mile trasining run and totally bonked on it running it in an hour and 12 minutes because the area was so hilly and it was hot out. That bad run stuck in my head the rest of this weekend.

Then Saturday getting to the  expo was a bit of a night mare haha we got lost and ended up walking about 5 miles. So my dreams of having fresh race day legs were shot.

But none the less I woke up rearing to go this morning on race day!!!

I went into this race with the intention of using it as a long training run, my run schedule called for a 20 mile run with 8:04 pace. So my plan was to warm up for a mile and then knock off as many 8 minute miles as possible. Looking at the elevation chart I knew it was going to be difficult, but I was determined to make the best of it.

I started out in corral B, I felt good from the beginning, I was surprised. It was almost as if all the issues I had on Friday had dwindled and I was just running strong. I had that race day excitement going for me and it was working :)

The first few miles were great I ran sub 8s and I felt strong. The hills were not bad in the beginning so I knew to take it fast then and save time for later. That strategy paid off well as I had a strong first half of the race. Mile 14 I had a big hill and it was slow but steady. Then I came back strong with more 8 minute miles.

The last 5 miles were down hill and some of it was steep, that was tough but I made it fun by screaming and cheering and high fiving as many people as I could. This is what I have come to love about racing, just savoring the moment and having fun. I have run 5 marathons in the past 7 months and I learn more about myself each time I run one.

Today I learned that I have truly come to love the marathon distance. I feel it is long enough to be a challenge and yet not so long that I am exhausted by the end. At mile 24 through 26 I feel so strong and am able to push through while others around me are slowing down. It just makes me feel even stronger when I am able to focus and conserve enough energy until the end of the race. I always end with a smile. The main goal I go for now is just to have fun and remember that I am lucky to be able to complete these races.

I ended up finishing the race in 3 hours and 43 minutes and 30 seconds. This was better than I expected! I went into the day telling myself just to worry about finishing and maybe sticking to the 4 hour mark.



The medal is nice. :) We all know how much I love me some race bling! 

This was an interesting race. I had fun today but I will admit, I do not think I will be coming back to this race any time soon... The course was tough and overall I did not enjoy the city as much as I have other races. The city was just not very friendly this weekend and I did not feel the buzz and excitement I usually do when I go to a new city for a race. Also, the course directors said they would have a strict finish time of 6 hours but they had people out still running at 8 hours, that is nice, but they were not nice when we asked if it would be ok to take more than 6 hours. This caused a lot of people to switch to the half when they realized how hot it would be and I feel like they did not get a chance to run the race they wanted to today.

After the race I decided to give myself my first ever ice bath. It was not fun at all and I admit I will never, ever attempt that again 

I only did it because I forgot my Arctic Ease at home :( CLearly, I will never ever make that mistake again! My poor legs.

I am tired but happy, I really feel I will be strong in Vermont on Memorail Day weekend and I hope a PR is in me!