Hi everyone! Jacob is letting me post here because he's not the only one on this nerdfit journey. I'm his wife, Kelly. Over the past year I've started having various health issues like high blood pressure and constant fatigue. I've seen many doctors about what's going on, but I'm pretty sure the reason for these symptoms, a long with my others, is pretty simple: I'm fat.

I've deluded myself for a long time about it. I lied to myself about how much and what I eat, how much I drink, and blamed my tightening clothes on the dryer shrinking them and the inconsistency in clothing sizes. Ya know, the usual rationalizations. However, a trip to the endocrinologist snapped me out of my delusions when he was wonderfully blunt and just said: "you need to prioritize weight loss in your life, or things are going to keep getting worse". This was in late December 2016 and I'd weighed in at 190 with a 41" waist. This is completely unacceptable for someone who is 5'2". Dr. Rometo gave me some pamphlets on medically supervised weight loss programs (that was a shocking thing to receive) along with information on glycemic index, he also suggested joining weight watchers for increased accountability.

The weight gain hasn't been a sudden one, and all of it has been my fault. Here's a picture of me in 2006, it's the oldest one I could find. This is when the weight gain started. I was in college and I'd just turned 21. I'd been a competitive swimmer for 9 years but I'd quit due to shoulder injuries and my university not having a swim team. My boyfriend of 4 years had just dumped me and I was about to fall into a very deep depression. These were the circumstances around my weight gain, I'm not trying to say that I was blameless, I just feel the story is important.

It wasn't just my weight that was effected here, due to the depression I allowed myself to fall into some very very bad habits. Even though I wasn't on an athletic team anymore to this point I'd been working out and joined various intramural clubs that kept me active and social. I was part of Tae Kwon Do and a regular at the campus gym before the depression set in. After the depression however, all of that ended. I started playing World of Warcraft and allowed myself to get completely sucked in. It became my surrogate life where I was actually able to feel in control and forget about the fact that I was so unhappy in my life outside. Now, there's nothing inherently bad or life ruining about this game, I play it now and i enjoy it; but at the time I allowed it to become an addiction. I played 12 hours a day at least. I nearly failed out of college, stopped taking care of myself, and I developed a habit of binge eating while sitting on my computer. With the binge eating I also started to purge, thus... bulimia became a part of my life, again.

Now, the bulimia didn't start in college. That actually started in high school, but it was a very small thing that I did as a part of an attempt to lose weight for, of all stupid things, prom. However, coupled with the depression and self loathing the bulimia consumed me. For about 5 years I binged and purged daily. A trip to the dentist in 2010 snapped me back to reality when it came to how much damage I was doing to myself. I had 16 (SIXTEEN) cavities in my mouth caused by all the acid erosion. It was thousands of dollars to repair. This snapped me (mostly) out of the purging. Its something I struggled with for years, and I still sometimes feel the urge; but my eating habits didn't change. Binge eating just became my normal.

My weight held steady between 150 and 170 for a long time. Mostly because my jobs kept me on my feet (working as a lab tech) and I met Jacob who's been a good influence on me when it came to working out, but my diet has never ever been something I thought about. I ate whatever I wanted in whatever quantity I wanted. Though, in 2014 we moved to Pittsburgh and I got my first desk job and predictably, my weight ballooned. Here's what I look like now. This is my starting place and my work is cut out for me.

My diet has changed dramatically. I've cut out all alcohol and simple carbs. Focusing on eating foods that have a low glycemic index. I've lost about 8-10lbs so far and the weight continues to come off slowly. Right now I'm frustrated with how slowly this is going, but I have to keep telling myself that it's a long road and Rome wasn't built in a day.