Looking back on the past year, I am overcome with so many emotions. This journey was both incredibly challenging and rewarding. It is hard to accept the fact that you need to change your habits. It was hard for me to face the fact that I gained so much weight and even harder for me to face the fact that I had to do something about it. I have been big my entire life, I have never known anything else. I never thought about exercising or eating healthy. As I got older and my weight got worse, I started to push the thoughts away about needing to lose weight and how I would always tell myself that I would start exercising tomorrow and tomorrow would come and I wouldn’t do it. I would even dream about losing weight but never actually got off my butt and did anything about it. I would promise myself that over the summer I would really commit to it and come back to school in shape and ready, of course it never happened. It took me until the christmas of last year to really see the problem. I was in such a bad place physically, emotionally and mentally. I had really hit my lowest point, my self confidence was down and I felt so bad about myself but I tried to mask it with happiness for the holidays but deep down I knew that I had to change. I had to do something about this. I didn’t want to become unhealthier as I became older and have the health problems that come along with it, I think that was probably the driving force behind it all. I didn’t want to let this get any worse then it already was. Weighing 240 pounds was enough for me to really look at myself and realize that I had to do something. The next part of the process was deciding how I was going to attack this. I found out about the South Beach Diet online and decided that it would work for me, so I got to work right away. I started to workout more and more and when I lost the first 15 pounds, I cried, I was so happy. I thought to myself, ok I can do this! Working out became more enjoyable the more that I did it, I made myself encouraging playlists to keep me moving. I started to eat better and immediately noticed a change in myself. My energy was up, my confidence slowly began to grow and I noticed how much happier I became. I began losing more and more weight, the day that my weight finally was below 200 pounds was probably one of the best days of my life. I was so happy. Putting pictures of my progress up and making an album on my progress was so much fun because I could see the changes in the pictures and how much I changed. I have finally started to actually live my life. I feel better. Looking back, it is hard to believe that I ever actually weighed 240 pounds, looking back at the pictures of myself when I was that big, I can see the unhappiness in my face masked by a smile. My pictures now are much happier and the smiles are real. It might sound so weird but I find myself looking down more not because I am unhappy but because I can finally see my feet when I walk after not being able to for so long, it is an amazing feeling. I remember the day that I stood up and could see my legs and feet in a clear view, it felt amazing and really crazy at the same time. I will never take that for granted ever again. Trying on my clothes that once barely fit and finding out that they are now too big is probably one of the best feelings in the world. I had to buy jeans recently because mine were too big, I started at a size 14 and now fit into a size 10. I haven’t been a size 10 in a really long time. I love going out and shopping for clothes now because I actually fit into clothes better and have more fun picking them out. This journey has taught me so much and I have come out of it a better and healthier me. It taught me how to love myself, how to be confident and mostly that anything is possible.