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Introduction Text Hello everyone, my name is Stephanie... I'm now 32, and after years and years of going round and round on the weight loss carousel, I am ready to get off the ride and get this done! :D 11/30/18: Unfortunately I have regained 60 of my 90 pounds lost and am trying to get those 60 back off and a bit more. 1/15/17: When you have been around Spark for as long as I have, you can forget to kind of update how life is going. Still Vegetarian as of October 8, 2015, do not miss meat at all and have no intentions of going back. My Iron gets tested with the rest of my blood work and so far so good. ;) I recently reset my weight loss ticker. While I will always count my total pounds lost from my highest weight of 272, I felt like a fresh start was more appropriate. Basically, I got as low as 181, kept it off for about 2 years and then rebounding back up to 237. I messed around all of 2016 gaining and losing the same 10 pounds only to begin the year at 233. So that is my "fresh start" and I just want to get to 170. I felt great at 180, so 170 has to be pretty awesome, and when I get there I can celebrate reaching my weight loss goal and losing 102 pounds! I just gotta keep on swimming. ;) 11/13/15: I gave up meat for personal reasons on October 8, 2015. I am looking at moving towards a high carb, low fat plant based diet. I will be posting the ups and downs on my Facebook page: www.facebook.com/starchystephy 6/17/15 - The true prize that no one tells you about is the sense of pride and happiness one can achieve after losing so much weight. We deserve to have confidence, love ourselves, and be happy at any size, but for some of us that is easier said than done. I spent so many years on the sidelines, watching everyone else live life. The weight only holds you back if you LET IT, and I let it for so many years. So many times in my head I would say "When I lose weight I will do X,Y,Z"! One of the saddest things is that the majority of those things had nothing to do with weight and everything to do with me and my lack of self confidence. Sure, there are SOME things that weight can hold you back from, example: If you want to go skydiving (I SURE DON'T LOL), and there is a weight limit and you are above that limit your weight is holding you back. But in a lot of cases it is your mind and how you feel about your weight that is the real cause. I let that happen for so many years. So many people may look at me and wonder what's wrong with me. Why haven't I lost the rest of the weight yet? I've been at this a little over 3 years and I'm still not at goal. You want to know what's wrong with me? I'm happy and I'm awesome LOL! I am happy with myself, I am a caring and nice person (unless you piss me off), I have a great job and for the most part a great life. Are there parts of my body that I am not crazy about? Sure, my hanging stomach and crazy thighs for one thing, but does that affect who I am as a person! No! And that was my biggest problem as a 272 pound person, I allowed my weight to affect my self esteem, my self worth, and most importantly my happiness. I was so overweight that I thought I couldn't possibly be a good person, or wasn't worthy of being loved, or had no reason to be truly happy. But I am that same awesome person, just in a smaller body. It took me a year of losing weight, and 27 years on this planet to figure it out, but better later than never! So if you want to know why I'm not at goal, it is not because I'm a failure, it's not because I have given up, it's because I'm learning to enjoy life and live life along the way. I no longer put off experiences or become a hermit because I can't go out and socialize because there might be food. That is no way to live. I need to learn how to lose it and keep it off, and 3 years later I'm STILL down 80 pounds I would say I have learned how to keep it off! 11/1/14 - I have grown so much and learned so much throughout this year. I have kept 80 pounds off... but I have yo yoed the same 10ish pounds more times than I'd like to admit! But I have learned so much about perspective... just keeping the weight off in itself is such an awesome accomplishment. I have gained so much confidence and self acceptance! I have gone out of my comfort zone and spent the year doing awesome things that I wouldn't have dreamt of doing 2 years ago! I have had so much fun, gotten more active, and truly been incredibly happy, especially these last few months! I have big plans to keep on going and get to my goal weight! I have also made the decision to have a tummy tuck at the end of this to remove my excess skin. It's a decision I made for me, and it wasn't one I made quickly. I thought long and hard about it and am confident in my choice. I feel like I've had good practice at maintenance, and I am ready for this final push to get the rest of this weight off. :) 1/4/14 - Since it is a shiny new year I thought I would take a minute to update this just a little. My goal for 2014 is to get to my goal weight of 160 pounds and shift into maintenance. I plan to do that the same way I have lost the rest of this weight, by remaining active and tracking everything! I have hit a huge slump from Halloween til now, but I am more than ready to turn it around. The most important thing on this journey is to never give up and to always keep trying. This journey is so hard but it is so worth it and I hope to be celebrating 100 pounds lost and eventually my goal weight with all my wonderful Spark Friends this year. :) 7/23/13 - This is the day I saw Onederland for the first time in over 9 years! I feel great and like I'm really doing this. Over 70 pounds down, in a good place both mentally and physically and ready to get to 170ville. That is my goal weight at this time, but my goal weight is an "I'll know it when I see it" kind of thing! :D 5/13/13 - I had hit 212 in Halloween of 2012, and was super excited for Onederland. However a nasty plateau really defeated my motivation. Through the holidays I maintained within a 5 pound range. Come January 1st I really thought I was going to be able to push to Onederland. But between January and April I didn't really lose much weight. In fact, I struggled so much for 4 weeks that I put back on 10 pounds. The important thing is that I never gave up, and I never left Spark people. I started gaining a little momentum the end of April and now that it is May I have my Spark back and I am pushing full force to Onederland and the rest of my goals. I have since lost the 10 pounds I gained and a smidge more, and I plan to take this all the way this time! :D 8/12/12 - I can now say through the support of my amazing Spark Friends, I actually feel like I am doing this! I envision myself getting to Onederland for the first time in at least 8 years! I could never SEE it happening, but this time I'm in it until the end! :D Edit: 6/1/12 Just wanted to update this and give a little history on myself... I was overweight as a child, and it just got worse as the years progressed. Food was definitely a comfort for me, and not just any food but really greasy unhealthy food at that. I remember being 205 pounds at 18 years old. At 19 I was the same weight, but had a very active job working for Vons.com 6 days a week, so I ate whatever I wanted and never gained a pound. In hindsight, I realize now if I would have gotten my eating under control back then, I would have done amazing. I was literally eating Taco Bell or whatever for lunch and going out to dinner with my friend most of those days. The fact that I never gained a pound eating that much garbage showed me now that it would have been the best time for me to really get my butt into gear. But that's life. At age 21 I started working at the Animal Shelter full time, while keeping the Vons.com job on the side 2 days a week. I didn't need to, but I really enjoyed that job. The issue was the Animal Shelter job was 10 hours of nothing but sitting, 4 days a week. Continuing to eat like I was and not having the physical activity quickly got me up to 240 or 250. Mind you, throw in a Weight Watchers attempt and Jenny Craig attempt somewhere in there. What is the only thing worse than sitting for 10 hours you ask? Getting a new job, my current job as a dispatcher on night shift, sitting for 12 hours. I eventually found my way up to 272. I was 250 for so long (and am currently around there), that it no longer phased me. Sure, I knew I was fat, and I knew I needed to lose weight, but I got so used to it, it really didn't have the impact it should have. But when I saw that number jump from 250 to 272 I was terrified. I think it was knowing how dangerously close to 300 I was that got me. I signed up for Spark in August of 2009, but didn't really get going til November 2009 and went from 272 to 250 almost effortlessly. With just tracking and some exercise. When I hit the major plateau of 250 and couldn't break it in the beginning of 2010, I pretty much gave up. Before I knew it I was back in the 260's. I then proceeded to bounce from 250-260 well into 2011. April of 2011 I fell down the stairs in my home (can we say clumsy much? ;), which resulted in a broken ankle and leg. I now have two screws in my ankle and a plate in my leg. My awesome xray is in my photo gallery if you are curious ha ha. ;) Before I fell I was doing Nutrisystem and doing okay, so I continued to eat that while I was laid up with the broken leg, mainly because it was less of a burden on my mom to have to feed me. I got down to 230, and while I know some of that was losing muscle from not being able to be active, I know some of it was fat loss as well. So you'd think I'd take that ball and run with it right? Well not so much. March of this year I managed to gain all that weight I lost, and show up again around 265. So here I am, recommitted to losing this weight, still around that number that always seems to haunt me (250) but I'm finally deciding that number needs to be a distant memory. :)

Goal is somewhere in the realm of 170. It's one of those "I'll know it when I get there" kind of things. :) Highest Weight EVER: 272 SW 11/30/18: 242 Goal Weight: 172 232: (40 down): ??? 222 (50 down): ??? 212 (60 down): ?? 202 (70 down): ?? 199.6 (Onederland): ?? 192 (80 down): ?? 182 (90 down): ?? 172 (100 down): ??





Goodbye 270's! Goodbye 260's! Goodbye 250's! Working on 240's! Excited about 230's! Excited about 220's! Excited about 210's! Exited about 200's! Excited about 190's! Excited about 180's! Can't wait to see the 170's!

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