35 pounds.

today i'm going to share some pictures that i swore i would never show anyone.
a couple years ago, i put on a little weight. and i was extremely sensitive about it. how does one put on thirty pounds in three months, you ask? one moves to hawaii, feels like it's a permanent vacation, has extreme acne breakouts that limit the amount of time one feels comfortable being around others without makeup on, like say, the gym, and one eats copious amounts of food to try to feel better about oneself and to cope with loneliness. binge eating, that was my thing.

like eating one or two bags of raisinettes every single day.
like eating 3-4 pints of ice cream every week.
like eating 7 cupcakes in one afternoon. 
like cooking a bag of spaghetti noodles and eating the entire package in one sitting.
like when your friends invite you to go to a concert and instead, because you're feeling insecure about your skin issues, you decline their invitation, stay home, and microwave flour tortillas with butter and sugar over and over until you're so full you can barely get off the couch.

that person was me.

when i went home for christmas break, none of my size 6,7, or 8 pants fit. i had to go buy new pants in a size 11 and it was pretty depressing.

this is the picture that inspired me to lose weight. 

a dear friend who came to visit. the entire trip, i wondered if he was disgusted by my weight gain. 

you know i still wore my bikini like a champ though. 

as one girl said to me at the beach, "you might not have a bikini body, but at least you have big boobs." 

... some people, right?

(sadly, i did lose almost an entire cup size. if only we could just transfer the belly fat to the boobs, amirite??)

so i moved home and started dating travis, who is extremely active. i felt pretty embarrassed about how out of shape i was, so i started running again. i stopped eating sweets, and started scaling down my enormous portion sizes. travis and i started playing racquetball, going running together, and since he doesn't have a sweet tooth like me, it was easy to say no to desserts. probably the best thing for my weight loss though, was joining a gym. i started going to kickboxing, step, weight lifting, yoga, and pilates classes, attending faithfully 6 days a week. that was two years ago in january. 

overall, i have lost 35 pounds, going from a size 11 to a size 4 and it took about a year. after i lost the weight, people would always ask me how i did it. "diet and exercise." i would respond. "seriously?" they would ask in disbelief.

it's funny because the gym is such a huge part of my life and i realized i hardly ever blog about it. those kickboxing classes gave me my self esteem back. working out is such an adrenaline rush, and getting to know the women in those classes and the teachers opens a whole new social scene. if you are trying to lose weight and it's taking forever, and you feel like you're never going to get there, i promise that if you stick with it, you'll be so happy and proud of yourself. we have these amazing bodies. are we treating them with respect and love? 

so why am i choosing to write about this, now that it's been a few years? the past few months, i have been slipping back into bad habits. eating late at night, eating sugar for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and using food to feel comforted. there are a few foods that are "trigger" foods for me, like chex mix, cereal, and baked goods. it's like i eat these and the floodgates open. i do not want to go back to that person who blew off her friends to stay home and eat, so i am going off sugar, hopefully for a whole month. today is the second day, and it's killing me! but it will be worth it. to keep myself accountable, i'm going to write about it here. 

no sugar, day 2: 117 pounds.
(don't mind the instagram photo)

and no, i'm not really looking to lose any more weight. just curious to see if going off sugar amounts to any changes in my bod.

if you ever need encouragement or a referral to a great gym, trainer, or classes, email me: collette.charles7@gmail.com