I started this journey because my mom got cancer. They told her she had a much greater success rate of survival because she was not obese. At the time I was morbidly obese and knew that I only had a certain amount of time before I would be in danger of getting the cancer she had (ovarian). All the women on her side of the family have had it, so it feels inevitable to me that I will get it. I don’t think it’s pessimistic, just more realistic. Being so overweight meant I would go through a much harder recovery than my mother and increased my chance of death. Thus, I made a pact with myself to lose almost 100 pounds, get down to regular sized clothing and aim for a size 12 or 10. I am not picky, whatever size is more natural for my body, I will do. I am also not naive enough to think that I can get down lower than a 10 because I am simply big boned, wide-framed and even when I was a teenager, I was just never that size.

So this was my starting point:

The beginning of my journey had me at a size 22. I weighed 280 pounds and I never worked out. These pictures were taken after the first workout with my trainer, and it kicked my ass.

I ate candy for breakfast or lunch, ate out frequently and would sneak delicious treats into the house to have at my leisure.

For two months I worked out with a trainer who introduced me to lifting weights and interval training. With her I lost ten pounds and a full size.

From there I started working out at GoodLife and started taking a weight lifting class called BodyPump. During this time I maintained but I didn’t lose weight.

The next step in my journey was moving from Canada to Houston. I joined a bootcamp called TransforME. Working out here transformed how I workout. It took interval training to a whole new level. I was introduced to mountain climbers, medicine balls, and jump squats to name a few. Between September 2011 and December 2012 I lost another size and 20 pounds.

Here is what I looked like after four months working out with TransforME:

Here is a picture of me from December 2012, you can see the difference in my face:

In January 2013 I made a bold move and joined a CrossFit gym. I was scared out of my mind. With a bad knee, how would I survive these classes? I joined Pearland CrossFit in their beginner class called “Body Shop” and got introduced to new movements like box jumps, pull ups, double unders, plus lifting weight in a different way and upping my cardio to a whole new level. Here I also was taught the Paleo way of eating and slowly incorporated it into my lifestyle. In June I “graduated” to legit crossfit workouts and started learning what my body really could do. I have broken up with my scale completely, as I gained weight and got smaller. It didn’t make sense to beat myself up when I was on the right path. Below is a picture from June of this year. Crossfit is redefining my upper torso and growing my quads! Bah!