Say Hi To Felica!

Felica is my first guest blogger! She runs a small business from home, crocheting custom hats and blankets. She is also going through a weight loss journey, with many ups and downs.  She has decided to share her story:

All of my life I've been skinny. Well, not to the media standards, but to my own. I never weighed over 145 pounds until 2 years ago. I am now sitting at 178.4 pounds, the last time I was weighed. I always used to obsess about how overweight I was at 145 pounds and thought that I was fat and it never occurred to me that I wasn't overweight until I actually was.
I got pregnant in the summer of 2010 and ended up miscarrying which sent me into a quick descent into depression and making my bipolar and anxiety skyrocket. I went from being a happy, bubbly girl, to being a depressed woman who could hardly get out of bed. This did not effect my weight in any way.

When I finally spiraled out of control into feeling suicidal, my fiance, now husband, helped get me into counseling and on the medications that I needed to start feeling at least somewhat normal again. Unfortunately, one of those medications, Seroquel made me put on quite a few extra pounds. I went from being 145 to 180 pounds.

This started to depress me even more when I saw the scales weighing in at 180 pounds. I hadn't even noticed myself gaining all of the weight that I had gained until I went to the doctor and she weighed me. The shock I felt at being ‘heavy’ was unexplainable. I felt disgusted with myself over letting my body become out of control, although I wasn't the only one to blame for my weight gain.

I went off of the dreaded medication a few months ago and found myself losing weight slowly. I managed to find myself around 168 pounds and was thrilled. Most of this weight loss was because I had gotten sick with some kind of stomach inflammation that caused me to vomit up almost everything that I had eaten.

Now that I’m not sick, I've started to put the weight back on. I’m back up to 178 pounds. I’m once again disgusted with my body, and am not happy that I let myself gain the weight back. I’m obsessed with losing the weight again and it’s becoming unhealthy for me.

I've cut out almost all of the sugar out of my diet, which is a start for me because Coke is my weakness. I would drink it almost every day, ALL DAY long. Now, I’m replacing a can of Coke with a cup of black coffee. I still get the caffeine intake that I would normally get, which I do need to start cutting out of my diet also, but I’m not getting nearly as much sugar and other unhealthy things from the soft drinks.

Along with my poor diet, which consists of nothing but unhealthy foods except the occasional salad, I’m very bad with exercise. I’m not, and never have been one for much physical activity. I don’t do well with exerting myself and I absolutely HATE to sweat. That is something that I desperately need to change.

If I were to pick up a good diet, which I should start doing anyway for my stomach problems as well as my weight and pick up a nice exercise routine, I might be able to get back down to at least 150 pounds which I would love to see again.