Stats:
Height: 5'6"
Weight: about 135 (varies between 134 and 136 from week to week)
Weight Goal: 140
Highest Weight: 215
Weight Watchers starting weight: 198.8
Made Goal: September 29, 2006

I'll admit that losing weight wasn't always easy. In fact, I stayed the same weight for nine months (I had a lot of personal issues going on, I temporarily dropped out of school, I was on antidepressants that had a side effect of weight gain so staying the same weight was really a blessing...). But I knew that I wanted to do this. I've been overweight almost my entire life. I didn't want to be overweight for the rest of my life.

When I was in elementary school, I was very skinny. Extremely so. I was in every sport, so I was very active, and could get away with eating ice cream every day (which I did). But in fourth grade, I developed a bad case of Osgood-Schlatter's Disease, which is a condition of the knees. My case was so bad that, despite going to a specialist, I had to quit almost all my activities, I couldn't run anymore (I didn't start running again until this past year, in fact), and most days getting out of bed hurt for the first year. I couldn't kneel, and bending my knees was sometimes asking too much. As you can imagine, with such a drastic change in my mobility (and at ten years old, I knew nothing about the correlation between calories eaten and calories burned), I started gaining weight. And gaining. In sixth grade, I was 166 pounds. Eighth grade, I was 200. I stayed around 200 for the rest of high school (my activity was "increased" because of marching band, which was low impact but still got me moving a decent amount). I lost 20 pounds my senior year with a new job... but gained it back, and then some, my freshman year of college, bringing me to my highest weight my freshman and sophomore years, when I was attending Hofstra University in New York.

I transferred schools to the University of Massachusetts at the beginning of my junior year, and immediately joined Weight Watchers. I started attending with a friend from high school, who had been going to meetings for a little over six months. I was at a new school and wanted to be a new person (I've always been very shy, and part of that is because of my weight. I decided I didn't want to be that shy person anymore. I didn't want to be held back because of my weight anymore). I had been working on strengthening my knees. I'd been going to the gym while I attended Hofstra, but hadn't been losing weight because I knew nothing about portion control. That's probably been my biggest downfall in eating throughout my life. I generally eat pretty healthily, but in large amounts.

Combined with regular exercise and Weight Watchers teaching me about portion control, I learned a lot about losing weight in a healthful way, and it's a system I use today to maintain my weight. I've been a lifetime member for over a year, and I still think about Weight Watchers every day.

Before: Sophomore Year

First week of Weight Watchers

Day I made Lifetime

If you want to see my entire WW photo album, go here