This peachy girl's gonna get healthy

This is my journal to reach a healthy weight, maintain an active lifestyle, and just general better living so that I can live my life to the fullest. I am a southern gal active with my family, church, and some community organizations. I work part-time as an engineer, and the rest of my time is busy just keeping the house in somewhat order!

My weight/fitness journey -- I would say that I was an average sized gal growing up. I stayed active through dance, cheer leading, and marching band through high school and never really had to watch what I ate. Once I went to college, I of course added the dreaded freshmen 15, and was about 160 once I graduated college and got married at 22. The next 18 months were fabulous as far as fitness -- while working on our graduate degrees, my husband and I were able to use our colleges activity center, and I did aerobics classes (step, kickboxing, high/low, etc) 3-4 times per week for 1 hour per day. Since we were young, graduate students with a small income, we also did a lot of "grilled cheese and tomato soup" and ate out less. By the time we finished graduate school, I was 145 and probably in the best shape since the end of high school.

We moved back home, and never joining a gym probably was my downfall. I would try to stay in good shape by exercise videos, church/apartment gym equipment, but with a busy job and now more flexible income for dinner parties and nights out with friends, my weight began to creep up again. Pregnancy #1 started at about 160, topped off at 200, and pretty quickly reached 165 and while weaning DD got down to 155. Then.......Pregnancy #2 came along with a max gain of 190, and quickly reached 170 after birth. I stayed at 170-175 until DS weaned at 14 months. Unfortunately, I was still eating like I had a nursing kiddo, and the calories just went to all areas of the body. A year has past, and I have hit 190 again and realize that this will not come off without a serious plan and some serious action.