This is my blog and I can say what I want about myself no matter how stupid.

I used to work out religiously. This all started when I lived in Bakersfield and had no friends. This is so sad, but the thing is, my days off seemed like an eternity. I didn't have interactions with other humans and I thought my days off would never end. So I started working out like crazy as a means to occupy myself for the weekend. I reached a point where I had to force myself to take time off. I wouldn't say I looked amazing, because I didn't do enough cardio and I still had more body fat than I wanted, but I had really well-toned muscles.

Fast-forward and I'm engaged. Wedding planning took over my life for a year. If you haven't done it, you probably don't understand how it could possibly be so time consuming. The worst part is, this is the time when people want to really lose weight. You just don't have time to work out if you are planning a wedding AND have a job. Lucky for me, I discovered that stress just makes me skinny.

After the wedding I jumped from 103 pounds to 116 in no time. I'm small boned, so a 15-pound weight gain in a few months seemed obvious to me. I never did get back into the work-out mood. I would eye the skinny, tall girl at work (Carla, I'm talking to you) with envy while reminding myself that she runs all the time and eats carrots all day. I, on the other hand, didn't exercise and ate McDonald's way too often.

I reached a point where I felt so down on myself. I tried to tell myself that I couldn't look that bad if I fit in a size 2 still, but I still felt my jiggly thighs rubbing together. Now, don't even go there with the eating disorder thing because as I said before, I ate plenty of McDonald's. There are two things I can't stand in life: being hungry and throwing up. I started thinking about the movie "The Sweetest Thing" where Christina Applegate starts shaking her arm and asking where that jiggling flab came from. I felt like that. I'm too young to let myself go. All of a sudden, your body is changing in little ways and it's so unfair. I think, "I only have so many years left that I can look hot, so why am I wasting any of them?"

Anyway, I ran for the past three days in a row and it's so amazing what a difference it makes in how you feel about yourself. I know it hasn't changed anything about me yet, but I feel like I look good now anyway. Every day I remind myself that I can spare that 30 minutes of my day because it's worth it for the confidence boost it gives.

I also owe a shout out to Willie J., who has so many kind words for me when I'm down on myself. You're a good man, Willie J.