See how far I have come...and how far I need to go

As a floor nurse I stayed relatively active and although I wasn't societies definition of skinny, I was at a weight that I was happy with and was able to maintain. At that time, after I had my younger son, and had trouble getting back to my pre-pregnancy weight, I made sure to avoid snacking on junk food while working the night shift and at 183lbs I thought that was the worst I could ever weigh. I did manage to lose and was able to get down to 160 lbs. Although to a lot of people, that is still considered heavy, with my body structure, I did not look "fat". The picture below is me at my younger son's 2nd birthday.

I then transferred to the surgical department and trained to be a circulating nurse and also a scrub nurse. This was a completely different world in the nursing profession and involved a lot of learning. They really don't teach full blown courses on surgical nursing when going for your Associate Degree in Nursing, (at least not at the college I attended), but after getting through the stress of learning everything, I absolutely loved it. I had hoped by switching to the surgical department and going off of working the night shift after 3 years, it would help my insomnia. Unfortunately, it didn't help and I still struggled with insomnia and also started turning to food more and more. I started gaining weight and food became my best friend.

I would feel bad and instead of facing the reasons I was turning to food, I would just eat more. I would validate my eating habits and try to tell myself that I wasn't all that big and it wasn't that bad. I would stay up late into the night and eat whatever I found just because I was bored and couldn't sleep.

Throughout this time, I would also try dieting and starving myself, and of course not lose any weight and the cycle would continue. Fast forward to May of this year; my niece asked me to do her hair and make-up for her senior prom, I was more than happy to and after I was done my sister took a picture of my niece and me together...

 
I was completely devastated when I saw this picture. I avoided having my picture taken as much as possible and I avoided full length mirrors. I was in a constant state of denial of just how much I had gained. I was determined to do what was necessary to finally lose the weight I had gained. In the picture above, at my heaviest, I weighed 227 lbs.

June 16th was the first day of my journey, no particular reason or rhyme behind the date, just happened to be the day that I woke up and said to myself that I needed to do something about this, I wanted to love myself again and be the person I was supposed to be. I stopped drinking pop completely, (the few times I have tried to take a drink, it was WAY too sugary and really tasted like syrup).

I still drink one can of sugar-free, low carb, no calorie Monster almost every day, I almost feel like I'm not fully awake unless I do. After I finish the Monster drink, I fill up my 32 oz water bottle with ice water and lemon wedges. I drink this constantly the rest of the day and just refill it and keep the lemon wedges in the bottle. I have also taken supplements that I have reviewed for sellers through Amazon.com. I am never paid to review them and I always give an honest review of how they have worked or not worked for me. I try to avoid snacking throughout the day, and generally don't eat lunch. I don't have desserts every night and avoid the late night snacking as well.

Since June 16th I am proud to say that I have lost a total of 48 lbs and currently weigh 179. I still have a long way to go to be where I want to be but I am getting closer to my personal goal each day. I use to weigh myself every day and realized that was just causing negative feelings to surface, so I avoid weighing myself as much as possible. If I feel like my clothes are getting to be loose, I will step on the scale at that point because there is no reason to torture myself because I am losing at a slower pace now. So you have seen pictures of me above showing me before I gained the weight, at my heaviest, and now you can see a comparison of me from May of this year to a couple weeks ago:

I would love to hear from others that have been successful in their weight loss journey and gladly accept any tips you might have! Feel free to leave a comment on how you were able to lose weight. If you have any questions for me, feel free to ask as well!