Hi!
As a new member to Weight Loss Buddy, I thought I would take a moment to introduce myself to the rest of you buddies.
A few quick facts:
My name is Ariana, I am 23 years old, and constantly trying to lose weight.
I live in Albany, NY (though I grew up in Kinnelon, NJ) with my boyfriend, a roommate, Ashley, and a little dog (a Puggle) that we call Izzy.
For the past year, I have been a reporter at Spotlight Newspapers, a weekly community-oriented newspaper, and cover all the workings and happenings of Colonie-a town that was at one point the largest town in America.
Now to the parts that would interest you:
I LOVE chocolate, and candy and food all together. But mostly chocolate. I have a serious sweet-tooth that I've tried several times to kick with the help of Splenda- in fact, I put Splenda in my coffee every morning and then eat at least one cookie/brownie/candy bar somewhere throughout every day.
Several times over the past five years I've tried to lose weight, and I'm not going to lie-I was very sucessful once. After my first year of college I gained a little more like the Freshman 50 (as opposed to the Freshman 15, get it?). So, after Spring Break I got hard to work at dropping the extra baggage.
I started out going to my college gym (I graduated from SUNY College at Plattsburgh) every day doing about 30 minutes of cardio on the elliptical and stretching after. I also rearranged my entire diet, which was very hard to do with an all-you-can-eat meal plan at the college dining hall, cutting regular soda (one of my favorite things from my prior life) out completely, and choosing salads over hamburgers. Two months after I started, I regulated my workout routine, adding an extra 15 minutes to my cardio, and exploring other machines, like the stepper and treadmill, taking two days off to recoupe per week from my more intense workouts, and using weight machines to strengthen my arm and leg muscles.
I read health magazines and stayed current with new health tips, learning new abdominal exercises and showing them to my friends at the gym.
By the time I returned to school the next Fall, I had dropped 60 pounds! I felt like a totally different person, and everybody came up to me and told me how great I looked. Most importantly, I felt great, and really really healthy.
But then, by the end of my Senior year my college courseload got a little more stressful, and even more to blame, I got a boyfriend. Getting a boyfriend, in a way, is like being sick with the flu for a week and not looking in the mirror-you really let yourself go. Don't get me wrong-I love my boyfriend and we have a great time together. But he is 6'4, and eats and eats and eats.
And what did we do together?
We ate and ate and ate!
Almost two years later, I look at myself in the mirror and I don't see the same girl that went back to college feeling confident and proud of what I had gained by losing. I see a person who has lost the motivation and wants to gain it back more than anything, despite my boyfriend, who, did I mention eats Taco Bell three times a week.
So now, I am hoping to get back on track and get back to the healthy state I already know I can achieve. But it is no fun to climb a mountain alone, so I am hoping to have you buddies as my backbone. Together, I am confident we can help eachother get back to where we want to be.
posted @ Tuesday, March 24, 2009 11:04 AM