Background Information

All my life I felt depressed and horrible that I experienced so much abuse at a young age. I started seeking refuge in food at the age of 9. My appetite became unstoppable. Eventually food was not enough and I looked for numbness at the bottom of a bottle and at the end of a needle. By the age of 26 I knew that drugs and alcohol had to go.

In 1990 I started working a 12 step program and got clean and sober, but I never addressed the food issues. So I ballooned to 310 by 2001, despite 7 years of sobriety. I knew something had to change. I ended up getting a lot of help to fix what was wrong on the inside. But didn't learn much about how to fix the outside.

But by 2006 I had lost 60 lbs and was down to 260 lbs. But I had no program to deal with the weight issues. I shopped around hit and miss with weight watchers, nutrisystem and a few others. My average weight stayed at 250 endlessly.

In 2008 I was diagnosed with Diabetes II. Something had to change. I tried a lot of different programs and just couldn't get with it. Couldn't stay motivated.

So on February 6, 2012, my Coach, Bobbie Jo Weber invited me to be part of a one month challenge for free and for fun.

I started out just having Shakeology every morning. I was too exhausted and malnourished to engage in too much exercise. I played a bit of Wii Just Dance or Dance Dance Revolution. But it wasn't until I had been on a Shake a Day program for about two weeks that I started getting some energy. i started wanting to work out because now I had energy.

Next I noticed that now that I started working out more, I started sleeping better. More sleep meant more energy. Despite only losing 4 lbs during that challenge I felt better than i have ever felt in a very very very long time.

I still have a long way to go to reach my goals. But I can see now how starting out with Shakeology i gained energy. Energy gave me ability to work out. Working out gave me the ability sleep better. more sleep meant better attitude and even more energy.

So now that I have even more energy I invested in Charlene Johnson's TurboFire at the recommendation of my coach. Now at 245 lbs, I can't do everything in the work out. My knees are achy so I have to take it a little easier. But the fact is I'm working at my top capacity without risk of injury. That is more movement than I have engaged in in the last eight years. What a difference six weeks has already made in my life.

Today I have a bunch of hope. I see the physiological and psychological changes that Shakeology and TurboFire has brought to my life.

So for now I still have more work to do but I will update this profile as things change.

Oh by the way, I won the first challenge with my Coach. I got Charlene's book! I'm working through that book. I'm very excited because I have a belief and a positive foundation for that belief that by the end of this year I WILL weigh less than 200 lbs. I also believe that by the end of 2013 if not sooner I will be at my goal weight.

So thank you Team BeachBody. Thank you Forum members who come into chat and encourage me everyday! Thank you Coach Bobbie Jo Weber. Thank you Shakeology and Thank you Charlene Johnson. But most importantly thank you God for bringing me here and giving me the tools I need to save my life.