Guest Post from The Ruby Tuttle Hippie Times

Meet Sam. She is such an inspiration! Girlfriend just ran her first half-marathon over the weekend and I couldn't be more proud of her!! I'm hoping we will have the chance to meet before she goes back to Oklahoma because we've "known" each other since she moved to Michigan. You are definitely going to want to read about her amazing journey and check out her blog when you're done here!

Hi y'all!

My name is Sam and I blog at the ruby Turtle hippie times. I'm from Oklahoma, but my husband and I currently reside in Michigan because I'm in law school here.

This past year, I made a resolution to take care of myself and lose weight. I'm doing it for multiple reasons.

I was morbidly obese, first of all. I don't say that lightly. The amount of weight I need to lose total puts me in the option to be on The Biggest Loser show. So in other, words, I am doing it for my overall health both, now and for the future. 

Secondly, we want to have children. I don't want my weight to be the reason that we can't have children. I would much rather work on the weight loss now, then have a doctor tell me I need to lose weight and I'm stressed out as it is and then I have one more issue to add to the problem.

Third, I want to be happy. I was not happy with my body when I was at my starting weight. I was not happy with myself for letting myself get to that point either. Clothes didn't fit. I didn't feel good about the way I looked when I was intimate with my husband. I also hated the way I looked in pictures. I didn't recognize myself.

So, I have been doing lots of things this year to change that. I very proud to tell you that I am down 53 pounds and counting as a result! So what am I doing? The biggest two are obviously, what I eat and how I exercise. I'm on the Weight Watchers Plus program and I'm a runner.

I realize that not everyone loses weight the same way, but those two things are what have worked for me. The Weight Watchers program is realistic and I still get to have things that I enjoy eating. It encourages and rewards healthy eating.

Running for me is how I lost weight during college. Now, it's not only something I do to lose weight, but it's something I enjoy. I am actually running a half-marathon very soon. I never knew that this was something I wanted for myself, but here I am. I wouldn't have been able to do it, if I hadn't been working on taking care of myself this year. Icing on the cake to all of this is that it also is a MAJOR stress reliever for me.

The other thing that works for me and I think is important to all major change is accountability. My sister has been my source of encouragement and I wouldn't have made it as far as I have without her. You need someone who knows you well and will tell you to get back up and try again.

If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to shoot me an email! I LOVE talking about any and all of the above things I've mentioned. If you want to read about my progress in detail, just click here.

Happy Tuesday!!