I must confess...

I'm a fatty. Seriously. I hit my highest weight ever this summer...which was about 100 lbs higher than I was when I graduated from high school. Being a dancer and dance teacher, this was highly embarrassing. I am active in teaching, but teaching is not the same as taking class every day.

I have tried several times to lose weight, with limited success. About 3 years ago I dropped 30 lbs. Last winter I tried tracking my food and cutting back what I was eating. That didn't work. Over the summer, I started using My Fitness Pal, and the hubs got me a bike for my birthday. My goal was to ride for 30 minutes at least 5 days a week. I lost about 10 lbs over the course of a month-not bad. But then Marching Season came up, and there was little time for anything and lots of food on the go. I did OK-keeping off 7 of the 10 lbs I had lost.

A friend of mine had a great idea, though. She worked really hard at getting together a Weight Watcher's At Work group. The plan was to have meetings right after school, before we got home and lacked the motivation to go to actual meetings. My mom had been successful with WW before (my entire family has had issues with their weight), so I was more than happy to give it a try. We started at the beginning October, and our group of about 15 people has lost about 180 lbs. I myself have lost 23 lbs, and that is including the holiday season. I'm really proud of myself-I have been averaging 1.5-2lbs a week (with the exception of a week or two). If I can keep this up, I will be much more comfortable in my skin next summer, and should feel great next year when the school year starts back up. I'm down 1 pants size; sometimes 2 depending on the brand of the pants.

I'm not really sure why I feel compelled to share this with you know. It makes me feel good to see my successes written down. I've been a bit down on myself lately-as proud as I am of my progress, I'm also a bit inpatient. I'm not skinny yet. And I really want to be. The rational thinking side of me knows that this will take time, and I am doing all I need to in order to lose weight safely and effectively. But the numbers and the mirrors are still not acceptable. Maybe by sharing this with you will help me find the joy in my progress and help prevent me from getting discouraged.

And, no, I will not post pics. Aside from being overweight, I am on a mission to get my skin which has suddenly decided it wants to be 13 again under control. And even at my best, I hate pictures.