Weigh-In Week 1 :)

So today was weigh-in day for the first week of being back on track and on this new journey :). I can say I was very surprised and happy as I saw a 6lb loss for this week going from 194 to 188 in a week which was awesome! I had deff. put on some weight and Thanksgiving did not help so that is gone plus a few more so it was nice to see the work pay off! I am going to post later tonight when I have more time because I have a lot to post about but this week was a sucess. I also really loved this picture above I found online and just wanting to view each week healthfully and know that NO matter what the number says I am more than that and you are too if you too are trying to get fit :). In fact we are SO much more it's just a nice encouragement and a way we can take better care of ourselves to be better in all areas of our life. Hope everyone has a great Friday, WOOHOO for the weekend!

~Kassandra

A quick check-in!

Tonight is not going to be a very exciting post but a post none the less because I want to stay consistent in my blogging and staying on track. Today marks day 5 of clean eating for me and working out, which is good! I can say it has been difficult just not letting the stress of being back in classes this week and looking to finals getting to me. I think while losing weight which I guess I have probably said this before on here, becomes like a side job or a full time one lol. I think it especially takes so much time and effort for anyone who has battled with binge eating or using food for their emotional needs. It seriously some days can be a minute by minute conscious choices to eat right, and to chose health over the comfort of food or the self bashing thoughts and such. I can say too these last couple days being back in the gym has been tough and MAN am I sore or what from strength training class, today stairs were a killer and walking in general was tough, and sitting forget about that haha, my quads hated me but it was a good sore :). Each step and sore feeling just reminded me how much I never want to have to lose the last 50lbs again. It makes me excited for the day I can say I am at my goal and stay there for life, it's hard to picture that because this has always been my battle but it is exciting none the less.

I have also just been feeling the emotions of things a lot more, especially at night. Any of you who have struggled with emotional eating even just a little bit know what I mean. I think really anyone ok's an emotional eat from time to time especially women and when hormones strike and for some reason it is ok to eat a whole box of Oreo's lol. I have just had to come face to face with feeling exhausted, or sad about certain things, lonely, or stressed and not being able to mask it with food which is tough but a good thing, and facing those emotions is never as hard as I think and I am deff. just more in tune with myself and my needs and such. For these next 5 weeks my goal is to do the gym at least 5 times a week maybe 6 times but I did take today off due to not enough time and also being so sore I could hardly move, I knew with having two hours of classes facing me tomorrow and the same strength training class, some recovery time for muscles was a good thing.

So yeah that is basically it and my thoughts for tonight, nothing profound lol, but at least something! I am going to post more on my food intake and workouts/ 5wk goal for this time around. I also quickly want to thank you guys for your sweet comments to my last post, that made my day and I am grateful for each one of the reader's of this and the support you give, it means so much and I can deff. say I missed the blogging world a lot :). Hope everyone is having a splendid week!
~Kassandra

Back to the beginning to the Present now

Just in case you are new to my blog or because it's been a break since I consistently posted so I felt like I should have a recap of why I ever started this blog/where it is going now on my journey through life. Well above you can see is me, yes it is me, not my cousin or an altered image lol(I have had people ask me both of those things). That was me in April of 2008 at my heaviest weight of 309lbs. I was a 17 year old girl used food as her comfort and had known nothing other than being over weight since what felt like birth. I joke and tell people that I was born overweight because I was 10lbs 15oz but really I don't think that has anything to do with it lol. Growing up in an evironment where food became my comfort to stress from about age 5 and also where weight problems went back many generations and was an issue for my family, especially the women in my family. Weight has always been on my mind since Kindergarten when I can remember not wanting to wear a certain dress because a boy told me I looked pregnant in it, which typing those words still just break my heart because no five year old deserves to be body conscious but that is what happened at a young age and of course as a child you don't know what to do with that. 


As the years went by I went from chubby and overweight to by about age 15 being obese. As more stress through life occured such as losing my grandmother and then my parents going through a nasty divorce and having an emotionally unstable environment almost 24/7 food was always there to answer when I needed it's comfort most. I never realized that is what was going on until really these last two or three years, I just thought I liked to eat a lot and didn't think much as to why, partial because of my age and also just because that was always the norm. I grew up with a mother who did the same thing and so a lot of times it was just a family thing that we did and didn't question. As I approuched my high school and stuff it became very evident I was not like the other girls my age and was missing out on so much. No boy is interested in a 309lb girl, dances, dates, going out with friends even were out of the question and my self confidence was very low. I also have 7 siblings so it was much easier just to be a home body and not think anyhthing different because I knew nothing different. I knew I wanted to lose the weight but just didn't know how to stop the food or why I was using it. I would start a diet last maybe two weeks if I was really lucky but most of the time stress crept back in and then binge eating began again (but again at that time I didn't know what a binge was or that I was even using food to numb my feelings). 


Summer of 2008 as I approached my senior year I knew I wanted to make some kind of change before college and that enough was enough. I could no longer walk up stairs without being completely winded, I could barely fit in a regular sized school desk at school and was in a size 28 pants and a 3x shirt being able to only shop in Plus Size. But more than the things or this world I couldn't do I was in severe danger health wise as I was becoming pre-diabetic and also hurting my chances of fertility as my hormones were way off the charts due to my weight. Not to mention I can say some days I hated the person I was/didn't even begin to know who I was due to the weight, I was miserable trapped in a fat suit of who I could fully be. I know I am still the same girl but the real me could never come out due to the layers of fat and pain behind each one. I decided that summer I needed to change but just wasn't quite ready to fully commit for a few months. I started training with a personal trainer but just couldn't quite get the eating part down, so after about 3 months of no real progress Tricia sat me down and told me I needed to chose if I was going to 100% commit to this or she was no longer going to train me because I wasn't ready. It deff. hurt my feelings a lot at the time and I was angry but it was the best thing she could have said to me, because she challenged me to really think about it the next two months and set the fire up for what would become the first day of my new life and start of my weight loss journey on December 11, 2008. 

So that day this girl above prayed a lot, thought a lot and felt God pushing me towards taking that step into faith and doing this and this tiny, tiny, bit of hope pushed me to do it and I was off. I cannot tell you other than God's strength that helped me and motivated me because looking back I think WOW I had a lot facing me, but I can say it was the mind set of knowing it was a day by day process and it wasn't going to happen over night, and LITERALLY celebrating every day I did not cheat, or every day that I went back to the gym or every day that I chose to feel my emotions and not binge eat to numb them. There days in the beginning I thought I would die or never make it but each pound I saw slip away on the scale each week I have my wkly weigh-in's was just enough to push me that much more to my goal of 130lbs. I know you probably hear people say this but you cannot look at the numbers as a sense of how far you have to go but just the next step you need to take, ONE at a TIME. So I did that, and before I knew it a week was a month, a month was two months and by April and time for prom I was down 75lbs. 

Above I was at 231lbs and at by far one of the greatest milestones of it all, the 75lbs gone mark and also going to my senior prom, something I never dreamed I would have been able to do but I did. It would not have been possible without the help of my trainer and her friend and the suprise date they planned but it was magical, and looking back now I think man I had a long way left still, I see a girl who felt beautiful for one of the first times in her life and starting to taste a little bit of the confidence that was soon to follow. 

I then graduated in May and officially hit the 100lbs gone mark by the time I graduated on June 4th and was SO cool to walk across the stage knowing that and just feeling like a different person and that while I wasn't at goal I was going to start college off 100lbs lighter at least and knew I still had the summer to really kick things up. Which with the help of a new trainer Ryan who was in the AirForce he took me from 100lbs gone and feeling better to tone, fit and crazy haha, his workouts were intense and some days just gainsaid. He also took my body from flabby and still puffy to toned in 3 months and it blew me away. There were days he was having me flip 100lb tires outside, some days even sitting on them as I had to pull them in the hot sun. He also was the first person to get my to run on a treadmill even when I laughed at him and told them there was no way that was happening but hey he was right......it did :). 

So above is what I was by the end of Summer of 2009, down another 30lbs over those three months and by Sept. 1st was at 170lbs and down 139lbs. I started college deff. a different person and it was strange because it was so new to me but here all these new friends and people thought that this was how I always was. It was at this point I started noticing people just treating me differently getting more attention. My next biggest thing was when my local newspaper decided to right a front page article on my weight loss titles "BSU Freshmen no longer WEIGHED DOWN". That was pretty crazy seeing myself on the front page and also becoming a little bit of a local celebrity for something that to me I still couldn't believe was actually happening. A lot of people didn't know about this either because I didn't tell tons of people just because I was so scared I was going to fail at some point and it wasn't going to work. It was neat though to receive more support and also the huge support I received at the Y, it all just pushed me to lose the last 40lbs and be at my goal. 


So the months came on and the season of the hardest time in my life came into full swing. November came a loss that was very hard to bear, along with the ending of my grandfather's life as he became very ill, who had lived with us for 6 years and was truly my second father and the best Grandfather or Papou(as we say in Greek). He passed in Dec. right before Christmas which made that difficult but I was so grateful because the week before he died I was able to spend my 1 year anniversary with him of the weight loss and he told everyone he knew and the whole nursing staff on the floor he was at in the hospital and I know he was so proud and was so thankful to not have to worry about my health, so as of Dec. 11, 2009 I was at 147lbs and less than half my size.

January came and was yet again another tough year as my family went through a transition again with losing the relationship with my mom due to some legal issues. It was by far the hardest month of my life and still continues to be painful at times as we adjust but I know God is control and has been SO faithful in it all. I did hit my goal as of Feb. 26, 2010 and it was a great feeling, it would have been even better without all the stress going on around and getting there in a healthier way because at least the last 10lbs that came off were due to stress related issues and not eating right or enough. At this point my weight was getting too low, and I was working at too much and had a couple of hospital scares in the ER with potassium issues, one being so bad my heart was .2 in potassium away from stopping....talk about wake up call!

So at my smallest I arrived but deff. was far from happy. I had been there 4 months of difficulties, lost the relationship with my mom, and moved out of my house and deff. felt alone at times and sick a lot as well as I now couldn't find the balance of being smaller and knowing when to stop trying to lose weight. After all 13months of pushing, pushing, pushing I didn't know what to do when I got there, no one had really prepared me for maintenance and I deff. had not prepared myself for it at all. I think because in the back of my mind I always thought that I would fail and never make it there, I never thought to prepare for once I did and how I would handle it/stay there. To make maters worse I was finally out on my own and thrown into the world of college, boys, going out and just horrible health choices constantly, again not really prepared for that reality at all. I did stay at my goal weight for about 2 months but that was until mr. comfort food crept in and I hadn't realized I never dealt with the fact of how I will handle the emotions and not go back to old habits. 


I can truly say that I didn't think I had any kinds of eating disorder or a morphed view on food but I deff. had my whole life but didn't think about it that way. So of course as stressed poured in and new issues with being thin came in so did the food, and it was easy to think "well heck I worked this hard to get there I deserve to let loose a little bit right!?". Well problem was being deprived from things for so long and certain foods my body just freaked out when even the slightest bit of "bad food" entered. It was like I had just been on pause for 14months and body immeadiately remembered the way it was soothed by Taco Bell, and a giant bowl of ice cream, or a cheese burger. At this point as well I was not fully seeking God out and had given up a lot on my faith due to the circumstances and just felt God had left me and I didn't know where to turn so food gladly stepped in. 


So 5lbs that was seeming so easy to get off in a week, turned to a 10lb gain, then a 20lb gain and then boom staring back at me by the end of the summer of 2010 was a 50lb gain and I had NO clue how I got there, but I did know it came on twice as fast as I lost it, and I was very depressed about that. I continued to struggle and would just feel this guilt coming everywhere because I HAD been at my goal and what I said I would never do I did, I regained some and every time I would go to get rid of it the guilt of ever letting myself gain in the first place would take over and start the vicious cycle again, and I lost hope in myself, lost that faith in me that I had in thinking maybe I never deserved the weight loss? Well while those thoughts came they are not true and didn't last forever. 


This last year the stress of things slowly started to let up, my life started to find order again and the pieces while never to be the same again started to slowly fall back into place. After all that went on I will never be the same person again, but I am stronger and more the real me that ever before and took that all happening for me to do that, along with God's strength and determination to NEVER let me go, even when I wanted to let go. As of Jan. of 2011 I fully committed my life back to Christ and to putting me back together after all the change and since then and seeking after Him I have found such a better life in Him and in this new me. The one area though I had yet to surrender was my weight and self-image issues and deciding that I CAN get back to 140lbs and lose these pesky 50lbs that have been hanging around and I have been carrying around the luggage of the stress of these past few years. I realized that I do have problems with food, and allow it to be my comfort and that is where my weight problem comes from, not the food itself but the way I view it, use it and needed it rather than feeling the emotions. I am reading a book now that is awesome called "Women Food and God" and if you too feel this way I recommend it or any book like it, but truly forcing yourself to see how you view food and the ways we use it. I didn't realize as a kid I would eat a whole bag of shredded cheese after my parents got into a huge fight and I somehow felt responsible, or that when I wait up until they would go to bed and I would sneak two sandwiches and chips to go to bed full so I wouldn't be plagued of thinking of the things I could not change of the day that was stressing me out or bogging me down. 


All that to be said.....I hope you are still reading and if you are you are a champ lol :), I have decided enough is enough. I am getting back to 140lbs, I am doing it while still appreciating the 119lbs I have kept off for over 2yrs now, and for the progress so far, and for the fact that maybe in having to re lose the last 50lbs I had to discover it's not just about losing the weight and running from the food but finding out why you ever got there in the first place and how you can stay in a healthy mindset towards it. If it hadn't been for this past year and a half of being back 50lbs heavier and really thinking how did I get there but not stay there and what is happening would I have ever realized my attachment to emotional eating. I now how to view it in that light and learn that you can deff. count calories and be restrictive to get to your goal but you MUST have a plan for once your there, so as I lose this last 50lbs again I have to learn to how to have a better relationship with food and get to a goal and healthy place in a way that I can stay there for life :). All this to realize it's not a number that makes you happy, or a size of pants or even a certain look or image, but finding yourself and living a long healthy lifestyle in every choice you make :). 

So above is me now, still 119lbs lighter, happier than the girl at the beginning of this post but not at my fullest potential and ready to be the VERY best I can be at my goal set at 140lbs and ready to learn to live there and be there for the rest of my life. :) Thank you guys who read this, and for the comments and I am excited to update even more on non weight related issues tomorrow and also about this week as I hit the gym hard again and figure all this out, November 25, 2011 was officially my new start date for this 50lbs loss and I am ready more than ever to get there :D. 

~Kassandra 

New Layout, New journey, Fresh start :)

Well hello :),
I have officially decided I greatly missed blogging and everyone in the blogging world and that it's time to be back up and running, it's been way too long. I realized that while I feel like sometime with school/work/other commitments right now that I say I don't have the time but really I just need to make the time, so I am.

In part of doing so I got a new sparkly layout which I like because anything that sparkles fits me well haha, the more pink and glitter the better. New banner at the top and just took some very old things down and made it more about the me now. It's crazy to think that it's been almost three years of having this blog up and almost three years since my journey to losing weight and becoming me started. I am so thankful for this blog for the fact that it has forever saved different parts of the life changing journey, but was hesistant to come back to it because so much has changed since then and I continue to find me, when at times I thought I had, guess that is something called life right lol :)? At different points I look back and see myself thinking I had it all figured out and done right, when really I had no clue at all, or what was just around the corner. That being said I have decided I am thankful for every part of my life and each season of it, but have to keep pushing forward and not sit in the past and just keep growing as things come along.

I knew I didn't want to give up on this blog but yet expand it, so that is what I am doing. Since starting the blog I have moved out on my own, gone through two more years of college, had a couple different jobs, switched majors, found a love of my own for Mission work and grown a lot in my faith in the Lord. It was hard though to come back and know what to do because with the break I took in consistently posting it's difficult to connect my old life/old journey with the new life and new journey. Also it has not always been easy because once I got to my goal weight I did not stay there but for about 2 months before gaining 50lbs back and being at a stand still with my weight. I thought of starting a new one, or totally changing everything, or just never doing it again, but none of those options seemed to be quite right. I still felt this call and want to blog and use this as a tool to express things, share my story and experiences and continue to document the up's and down's of life. So that all now being typed and hopefully making sense that is what I am going to do :). Any of my family and friends who know me well know I love to talk, love people and love sharing stories and just experiences so blogging is very enjoyable and hopefully others like to read it too and if not it's a good way just to journal and process life haha!

So here's to remembering the past, the old blog, the experiences this life has taught and continues to teach and here are to the new one's the getting to my goal and finding the right number on the scale and celebrating the 115lbs that have been gone now for almost THREE years and just sharing life experiences through the computer lol ;). Later on today/tonight I am going to post a page with my complete story/weight loss journey just as a refresher/catcher-upper on where things are and where they are going in life.

~Kassandra (:

Weigh-In #3

I won't even say it but I am late lol....but here I am! Classes have started, I am in my second week and feeling like I am in a tornado but that has worked to my advantage to be honest. I have been so busy I haven't thought about food as much and exercise has been DEFF. needed to be able to stay less stressed! I weighed in yesterday and was very happy to see 182 on the scale. I took 2wks off from the scale because it was starting to determine my mood daily because I was weighing in daily...DUMB. It's just so hard to not let it control you, and for me because it has been my "job" for so long to be healthy it can take totally take over my mind. Anyways this was encouraging because last time on the scale i was 189 so this is 7lbs down in two weeks and I will take it!

I knew I could feel a difference in my clothes and how I felt but hadn't seen the numbers yet but was pleasently suprised :). This week is also full of hormones and such so it might even be better on next weeks weigh-in but I am not getting on once until next Tuesday. I also did have a night where I let myself indulge a little on Sunday night the night we had our Dinner party at my new house with my new roommates and it was the first time in a while I had smal portions of "unhealthy things" but enjoyed every last bit and jumped right back on the next morning with my Fiber one for breakfast, then Tuesday still weighed in. I am so grateful I am slowly moving towards a healthy way of viewing food and viewing times when it is OK to go off the calorie path and not be so anal about it, because anal only gets you to a bad place where one day you are going to fall off, or at least I did. I still have a lot to learn about that but it is nice to know that 10lbs is officially gone and while this is a lot slower than the first time I am learning each day how to keep this off, and I love that! I am posting a recent picture too below from this Sunday and it was encouraging to see some difference in how I looked and it didn't hurt that I got the dress for 9 bucks this wkend at Macy's ;).

I can  say the theme of these next couple months as I work towards 140 again is just loving each place I am at no matter what the number is, and loving myself enough to know it's worth it to make the healthy choices! I am hoping to post more, and will try my best but these next couple weeks might be a little rough with school. Have a great day!

~Kassandra 

WAY Over Due Update!

Hello :), it has been a while since I have updated and I am sorry, I think I win the suckiest blogger award for the mont of July and maybe even August as well lol. I was not at all prepared for what moving was going to do to my life and how much it was going to take! Who would have thought that I would have accumulated so much stuff over the course of 1 year in college lol. Long story short I am officially moved into my house now and living with 6 other girls in a duplex like house and LOVE it :D. It took me a while to get adjusted just because I am not the greatest with change and switching up my routines but after a week and redoing/painting my room it's all good! The first night I actually got to stay in my room I slept better than I have in a while and really do feel like it's home, and the girls are great and it's all coming together nicely.

Weight wise where the heck am on the scale you might wonder!?!? Well last official weigh-in at Thin&Healthy I was at 188lbs so down another pound from the last time I posted at 189lbs. That probably doesn't make a ton of sense since it's been about 3wks since my last update but there were deff. some bumps along the road between then and now. I have always promised myself and others that I would be 100% real about my struggle with this and this is real right here. I did well for about 3wks on Thin&Healthy and as going strong and then moving happened and I let myself get so worked up and just didn't care for a week and a half and guess what hello 3lbs back on my butt(at least that is where it all feels like it goes lol). Anyways I was back up to 192lbs and feeling defeated yet again. But the cool part about this happening this time is I had a support system in Vicki the nutritionist at Thin&Healthy and in my best friend Heather who is now down 40lbs in 4months who told me not to give up and look at the weight I still had off and just get back up and kick it in tomorrow! I also had a little encouragement from the show "Extreme Makeover Weight Loss Edition". I watched an episode one night with Heather with this sweet lady on it who was over 400lbs and had a very rough child life and lost her mother. While my child life wasn't as rough as her's I did grow up with a psychologically ill mother and now have lost my relationship with her just in the last two years and that has taken a huge toll on me and was the fuel behind finding Mr. Comfort Food again a little over a year ago and still eats at me a lot.

Anyways the big thing she said that hit close to home for me was when the trainer on the show asked her "When was it you died inside and decided it was ok to get to the size your at and just give up on you?" She had to think for a moment but she remembered that moment. When he said that it was like he was asking me, "When did you Kassandra give up and die a little on the inside and decide you weren't worth it enough to stay at your goal of 135-140 after you worked SO hard to get there??" It was SERIOUSLY like a light bulb went off in my head and I can SO remember that moment, after going through a rough 3months with the issues with my mom, going through two awful relationships and all this during my freshman year of college I died a little, and decided I was just too much of a wreck to care or matter, and I shut off on the inside. Quit working out, quit the positive self talk on the inside, quit feeling confident, and worst of all quit believing in myself and using discipline but yet let myself give into the bad desires and just go with it. I just stopped caring about me and it's hard to admit that because that is HUGE and it was something that took me over a year to discover as I lost the weight the first time, but it's true and I can say I feel better after coming that realization in my mind and realizing that HAS to change, and each day I start out I get to chose if I make that choice to care about myself and do what's right for me or to go into autopilot and just not care.

That next Monday so about 2wks ago Heather and I got up and ran at 7am and decided we were going to start caring about ourselves WAY early in the morning and it was great! That alone pumped me up and got me fired up to care about myself in EVERY choice I made and that meant physical and food choices as well. I got right back on plan for Thin&Healthy and also counted my calories too. While at Thin&Healthy they don't make it's just something probably for the rest of my life I should and like to do, there is just something mental for me to see on the paper what I have eaten or I guess on MyFitnessPal.com lol. I can so lie to myself too easily on my calories so this is perfect! I have been doing Zumba/Swimming/Spinning in Cycling class and running these last two weeks and loving it as well as weights every other day and now down to 188 at my last weigh-in but I go in tomorrow for another one and REALLY hope it's down more! I am also accepting how big of a task this is 50lbs IS NOT SMALL and IS NOT EASY, this is going to be a lot to get off, but I can do it, and slow and steady wins the race. I am doing this to have it off forever so this is what it takes! I ran 3miles tonight for my "last chance workout" in hopes that I see great results tomorrow even just 2lbs I will be thrilled for this week, each one knowing it's getting closer to goal!

That's it for me tonight but I will be on tomorrow with an update on weight and some other cool things, , thanks to you who still read this and support my blogging even when it's not always on time, I am working on that! Have a great night!
~Kassandra

No I am not gone :D

Just a quick update before I pass out tonight but I did not forget about the blog I have just had a whirlwind of events the last couple days! I officially moved from my apartment to my house, which I post about more later! I moved last Saturday which was an all day event carrying things down 3 flights of stairs in over 90 degree weather...can you say sweat!?!?! I need get a great workout out of it though lol :D. I just kept thinking whew each step equals more calories burned YAY!

Long story short this wkend was a toughy because the sugar cravings and caffeine withdraws only got worse, and with moving and dealing with change on top of it, it was a bit nutty but with strength and prayer I got through it and had a good overall wkend! Working out has been key though because I just save up my stress like in a piggyback that I then go and cash in on the StairMaster haha ;). But none the less the internet is on in the new house and should be from now on, my room is about 1/2 way done and painted and hopefully by the end of this week I am settled. I am very grateful it hasn't effected my eating and cannot wait for Friday's weight to share! Hope everyone is having a great and I will deff. be writing more tomorrow, gnight!

~Kassandra