Lost 54 Pounds? I can do that.

It’s time to do this thing! Yes yes yes yes yes! A smidge of background for myself and for anyone who may want to know…

The most I have ever weighed in my life thus far is 230 pounds. Depression, plus not knowing how to be a good vegetarian, plus eating out all the time is bound to lead to one being a chunky chunkerson. I was still overweight in high school, but managed to lose a bit of weight starting in my sophomore year by taking an aerobics type phys ed class three days a week. My junior year I added a job into the mix and continued to lose weight. Hooray!

After high school I moved on to college, as many 18 year olds do, and I got poor. Poor and depressed. Poor, depressed and incredibly busy. I was living off daily 99 cent burritos from Del Taco and sourdough bacon hamburgers without meat from Jack in the Box. I was cashing in all the cans and bottles from beverages consumed in my apartment (I had quite a few roommates in college) to eat and do laundry. It was ridiculous. When I left college I weighed around 140 pounds, and while I still had a ton of fat on my body, I was a size that was ok. I wasn’t happy with it, but I was ok.

After college I moved in with a lovely guy, my first serious serious boyfriend, and proceded to gain about 20 pounds of “happy weight”. Bad bad bad! We started running and exercising and I lost about 10 pounds of it. 150 pounds at 5’4 isn’t too shabby, but it doesn’t look nice on my body. Not nice at all.

My relationship with the fella above didn’t work out, and after 3 years we broke up and, in what some people would consider a flash I started dating someone else and moved to San Francisco. Two and a half years into new relationship I was back up to 195 pounds and mysteriously 2 inches taller? WTF? Who does that? Lots of people, but why why why? Grr!

So this pretty much brings us up to now. Currently I am 174 pounds. The poundage that I have lost between 195 and now has happened for two reasons:

1. I became a vegan and got a bike. Brought me down into the 180s over the course of a year
2. For the last month I’ve been trying really hard to change the way I live my life

Two weeks ago I was 178 pounds, and decided that I am done being this overweight, tired, angsty, depressed, physically unattractive person. I want to feel vibrant, healthy, alive! I want the confidence I had in college. I want to wake up in the morning shooting lightning bolts of joy out my fingers. I want to be a radiant, whimsical reflection of all the wonderful that could be in the world. The body that I am working with is mine, and I love it for all it can do, but It’s not the best that it can be, and I owe myself and my body that.

So, 54 pounds. I can make that happen. I have no choice.