"I even did
a little dance celebrating my first steps on the road to
measuring my weight loss."
Over the years, I’ve tried every diet under the sun, only to
watch my weight seesaw up and down. On January 22, 2008–the
night I joined TOPS, thanks to a dear friend of mine—I weighed
398 pounds.
This wasn’t even the heaviest that I have ever weighed. I knew I
had to do something. I had to find a plan that worked for me to
make the necessary lifestyle changes. The support I found at
meetings was exactly what I needed most. I couldn’t lose the
weight on my own and the encouragement from my TOPS chapter
friends kept me going.
At my first TOPS weigh in, the center’s scale couldn’t measure
my weight because the limit was 350 pounds. I had to go to the
hospital and use their scale. I will never forget the first
night I had finally lost enough weight to be able to use the
scale at the center. This was one of the happiest moments of my
life. I even did a little dance celebrating my first steps on
the road to measuring my weight loss. I was finally on the right
track to making healthier choices and a thinner me.
In 2009, I set high goals for myself. I was both committed and
focused to win first place honor in the Alabama weight loss
competition and a second place honor at the international
competition in Orlando, Florida. This year, I reached my goal
weight of 170 pounds. Within two years, I had gone from a size
5x to a size 10. I never imagined that I could lose a grand
total of 228 pounds. But I did it, thanks to my hard work and
dedication and to my friends in TOPS with their everlasting
support and motivation
