Guest Post - Amy's story.

 Jen's note:  I asked my cousin Amy to write about her journey - she is doing fan-freaking-tastic and I am so happy for her and so very proud of her!

 Hi there! My name is Amy and Jen asked me to write a guest blog about my weight loss.

I started gaining weight in middle school and have struggled with it ever since. I am currently 31 so for about 20 years.  In 2007 I got pregnant with my first son and tipped the scales at over 300lbs by the end of my pregnancy.  I wish I could say that was when I decided to make a change but it wasn’t because I dropped back down to around 270lbs after I had him.  I stayed at that weight for awhile. I always had some excuse as to why I couldn’t diet but my biggest excuse was what if I got pregnant again? I wouldn’t want to hurt the baby by not eating enough. Yes, I was deluding myself and it is pretty laughable now.  But I did get pregnant again in September of 2011.  I was ecstatic! Then we had a heartbreaking miscarriage in November 2011.  This sent me into a bad depression where I gained more weight.  Then we made the decision that we were okay not having more children so I decided to focus on myself and in March of 2012 when I weighed a whopping 285.1lbs I decided to make a change.  I lost 50lbs by September.  Then in October I found out I was pregnant with our second son. What a blessing!  I gained all of the 50lbs back with my pregnancy.  So I had to start over again but I did start over and that is no easy feat.

If you are like me and countless others you have tried so many different diets that you lost count.  Here is what made this time different for me.  I am doing this for me, not anyone else.  Of course my family benefits from it but first and foremost I am doing this for ME.  I am NOT on a diet.  I have changed my lifestyle.  I can never go back to eating the way I did before. Not ever!  Do I splurge occasionally? Of course, I am only human but I maintain a healthy lifestyle.  Are you going to fail sometimes? The answer is yes.  So do you know what you do?  You pick yourself up and start again the next day.  I exercise.  I found out that I love to run and finished my first 5k in May.  I surround myself with people who support me.  Social media is an awesome way to do that too.  You will be surprised at the amount of people who cheer you on and want to see you succeed.  Weight loss is hard. Changing your habits are hard but it is so worth it!

I began my final and most successful weight loss journey on July 8th, 2013.

Now here I am almost a year later 86lbs lighter and weighing in at 199.3lbs.   I have people asking me what I did to lose the weight and the real answer is I didn't quit.  I didn’t do anything that anyone else can’t do.  I still have some work to do but I will succeed and so can you!

A before pic...

 From a couple of days ago.  Doesn't she look spectacular??