u/McGiggleByte

Location: Southern Georgia, United States

Was pruning some overgrown bushes and grass and was alerted to this beauty by my partner (which scared the crap out of me).

I am scared of spiders and had been keeping an eye on one of those large lime green spindly ones and it had disappeared so I was on high alert when I saw this one. I'm used to jumping spiders (if this is one) and I'll even pick them up but this was the largest one I had ever seen, and I got as close as I was willing to give my dirty thumb as a reference.

She didn't move the rest of the time we were working, felt bad for pruning some of her home/hunting grounds away, but sadly that's business baby.

One day I finally decided that I didn't want to look or feel like this anymore.

It was a slow climb up, happy relationship, dinners out with friends, always a sweet treat. And suddenly I was looking in the mirror and didn't recognize myself. Cliche, but I made a new year's resolution to fix it, and stick to it.

Calorie deficit. Got a scale to weigh food, cashed in on any deal I could find on produce (personal favorite is squash, broccoli, and green beans), got a rice cooker, started checking everything I ate.

Now, if I'm being honest I did not cut out the fun stuff. Alfredo, donuts, cake, brownies, instant ramen, coffee creamer. I just learned to use less, and not eat so much of it, and to work it into my days.

I had my SO keep me accountable. Make sure I wasn't taking things too far. I have a history of depression and I can spiral easily. The guilt I'd feel at dinners out. Eating everything on my plate felt like losing. But I had to fight through it. Remind my self that I had made it this far, and any weight gain can be worked off. Learn that gaining isn't bad, but I enjoyed myself, had a wonderful time out with friends, with my partner, a lovely meal, delicious dessert and to not look at it negatively.

It got really hard near the end. Sudden trips where I couldn't count my calories easily. My birthday, where I tried really hard to just let go no matter how much stepping on the scale scared me afterwards. Multiple family members were having health issues and scares, and sadly one death, and I didn't have the mental energy to keep up with counting.

And even though it slowed to a crawl, I made it. If you had told me last year at 225lbs I'd be here, I would tell you you're nuts. But here we are!

The next job is to actually try to work some exercises in and tone up haha. Muscle mommy will be my new white whale!

The recent update now has the Health Connect add the exercise calories (Which I don't really pay attention to or care)

but I went to a concert on the 26th and was confused on why my had no calories showing then I saw it shows me "running" for 3 hours 🤣.

You can see the first walk was us getting coffee, second was us walking to the concert, then hours of "Running" since I was going ballistic at Shinedown

I'm happily 45 pounds down from 225 to 180 and things like this make me laugh