My process to a healthy lifestyle....

Hi, my name is Jessica and even if no one ever reads this I would like to document this journey that I am on. I'm too lazy to go into too much back story on myself but here are some quick points.

• I graduated with a Bachelors degree in Psychology in 2010. 
• I work as a Mental Health Counselor in a Nursing Home that houses those who are elderly and those with mental illness diagnosis. 
• My parents live in Nevada, I live in Illinois with my grandparents and sister. It can be kinda lame sometimes, but I am very family oriented and wouldn't have it any other way. 
• I have struggled with my weight for most of my life. As much as I don't want to share all of this I feel it is necessary. So, I am about 5'3 and 240 pounds. I love fast food and most foods that are bad for you (breads, pastas, desserts, etc). I also spent some of my life in Georgia so I also love southern food (as well as Italian, Mexican, and Chinese). 

Ok back to my story. As of last Thanksgiving (2011) I decided that I wanted to become a partial vegetarian. By this I mean that I am a vegetarian 5-6 days each week and I try to only allow myself 1 or 2 cheat days (usually where I have meat or really fatty foods). Surprisingly it hasn't been too hard. I wasn't really a big meat eater to begin with. I do love bacon though, and miss it a lot. LOL Now it wasn't really my intention but just by changing the way I have been eating I have lost some weight (before I started I was almost 260). 

Fast forward to mid-January. I was still doing the whole vegetarian thing, but had kind of come to a standstill with the weight loss. Knowing that I had lost some weight I wanted to keep it going. I kept telling myself that I was going to work out and tossed around the idea of getting a gym membership. It didn't happen at first because 1. I'M LAZY!, 2. I work awkward hours and by the time I get home most gyms are closed, and 3. I had no motivation. 

Well, continue on to the beginning of February. I became very upset because I was continuing with the vegetarian diet but I was actually putting some of the weight that I had lost back on. This really pissed me off because I didn't give up bacon and Taco Bell just to put on lettuce weight.  So I decided to look into gym memberships again. I have found that they are very expensive and very stressful to choose from. Mainly my issue is that it is expensive. 

Which makes what I did yesterday so surprising. I decided to go with XSport Fitness because they are open 24/7 365 which is awesome due to my crazy work hours. I decided to go to the smaller gym (an Express) due to not needing all the extra amenities and equipment which is nice because its about $20/month. But did I stop there.....NO. I (who am in no way financially stable) decided that  joining a gym wasn't good enough. So I threw 6 months of personal training sessions on top of my membership which in the end will be around $2000. (a little back story on why this is crazy. I work as a mental health counselor which means I make no money. I am currently making $25000 a year and have about $900/month in college loans and other assorted bills (not including food, entertainment, and most importantly gas since I work an hour from my house). Money wise I think it will work, but I'm far from calm about it. 

Here are my plans:

• My scheduled training sessions are Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. I'm going to try to go 2 more days (if not daily) just to do some extra cardio and weight lifting. We'll see how that goes. 
• I'm going to continue with the partial vegetarian diet, although my trainer would like me to add some extra protein to my diet (i.e. chicken, tuna, and lean beef). I haven't decided if I'll do it but I guess that can be on my cheat days. 
• I'm going to attempt to stay as healthy as possible. So I'm going to attempt to keep my immune system in check (if you know me at all you know I get sick easily) and take essential vitamins and such. And I may even look into the protein shake my trainer wants me to have even though I don't think I need it and I'm sure its disgusting. LOL

Here is my goal: 

It's actually pretty simple. I don't really have a time frame that I want to accomplish it in. But I would like to eventually be 160 pounds. For my height it will still be a tad pudgy, but I can't be a stick girl. So I'm hoping to work down to a toned 160. That's about 80 pounds people. 80-freaking-pounds. That is why I have no time frame. I don't want to drop it all super fast and have flaps of skin. I want to do it right, and I want to do it so that it can lead into an overall lifestyle change. :)

Here's to hoping I don't give up in a week. Wish me luck! :)