I AM a champion!!!!

My focus for this year is to become healthy. I work in preventative care where I encourage people to be proactive in their approach to their health care. My focus is mainly the 3 big cancers; Breast, Cervical and Colorectal. I have questioned myself, "How can I urge these people to take care of themselves when I am carrying around a good 60+ pounds of unhealthy weight?" 

A year ago December, I was at my highest weight ever. 2-7-1. Such an ugly number to me. I had been slowly gaining weight since high school but the pounds really came on after my Aunt Kitty passed away unexpectedly 2 1/2 years ago. She was like a second mom to me and I handled her death in a very self destructive way. About a year after that I got into a relationship that was not healthy and my boyfriend and I basically ate our way through Southern California. I piled on 40 lbs while I was with him. We broke up in early December 2011 and since then I have shed those 40 lbs and then gained a few back. I am not prepared to share my whole story, or post any pictures just yet but I wanted to share a little bit about my roller coaster quest for health and happiness over the last few years. 

In December 2010, I participated in a photo shoot for Kaiser Permanente. I got to spend the day on the set and had my hair and  makeup fussed over by professionals. It was such a fun day. Little did I know when I signed on that I would have to act as if I worked out, knew yoga, etc. All of the photos taken are on a site for Kaiser to use at their discretion  I will never know when my face will pop up on a flyer or a poster. I prayed that I would never end up on a flyer for VD....makes me think of Joey on FRIENDS, "I was the Aramis guy! Aramis, Aramis, Aramis" So anyhoo, I logged in on Facebook this morning and I was tagged in my friends' photo. They were at Kaiser LA and look who they saw.....

So here is what I need to remember... I AM a champion! I do need to respect myself. Thank you Kaiser Permanente for reminding me of that, and to Dano and Rob for spotting this!