I began my weight loss journey only a few
short months ago in June 2013. Let me start from the beginning, I had my first
daughter in 2008 and gained a whopping 75 pounds. On February 17, 2008 I gave
birth to Alyssa Marie and weighed in at 193 lbs. Within the first month I
dropped down to 177 and remained there until I got pregnant with my second
daughter in 2011.
I always planned on loosing more weight
before I got pregnant again, but I never could keep it off. I really watched
what I ate for the majority of my second pregnancy, determined to not gain as
much as I did the first time. On June 21, 2012 I gave birth to Ava Madison and
weighed 210 lbs. That was more than I
ever wanted to weigh. Being over 200 lbs was scary for me. I needed to do
something about it fast.
Having two kids helped me to keep moving, but I have always struggled to
eat as healthy as I should. I think that has a lot to do with why I am still
holding on to my baby weight. I have
tried many different eating plans and diets, none of them stuck. I am a pretty
picky eater to begin with, so the prepackaged meals were not my thing. I love sweets and carbs, but who doesn’t? I
am learning to have smaller portions of the things I love, instead of cutting
out completely.
I have never been big into exercising, only doing a little here and
there. I own an elliptical, treadmill and Pilate's machine. They live in my
garage, out of sight out of mind. I go through spurts where I will work out
hard for a few days. Then I get burned out and stop. This is how I have been
exercising my entire life. I was not making any progress in my weight loss and
I was becoming depressed.
A few weeks before Ava turned one, I weighed in at 190 lbs. My
mother-in-law, who also struggles with weight loss, bought us a Groupon for 5
classes at ILoveKickboxing.com/Choe’s HapKiDo Grayson. She had done kickboxing
years ago and loved it. I figured it
couldn’t hurt to try it out. So, I called and scheduled our first class… I knew
it would be intense, but holy cow I have never worked out so hard in my life.
After the first class we signed up for one year, knowing that it was going to
lock us in and force us to stick with it for at least the duration of our
contract.
I have continued to attend kickboxing classes 2-4 times a week, along
with a slight change in my diet. I eat a salad almost every day for lunch and
have cut back on my snacking at night. It has been around 4 months since I
started and I now weight 170 lbs. and have dropped 3 pants sizes. I don’t weigh
myself on a weekly basis, it’s more like
once a month. I actually don’t own a scale. My main goals are dropping dress
sizes, becoming stronger and living healthier life style for myself and my
family.
Malia Drake
