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As a kid, I took dance (tap and jazz) for several years, as well as a couple summers of tennis lessons. I also took swimming lessons and spent a lot of time in my grandmother's pool in the summertime. After a while, dance lessons got too expensive for my family, so I had to quit. In middle school, I basically went to gym class and that was about it as far as physical activity. In high school, I was in marching band for 4 years, but beyond that and gym, again, I just didn't get into much physical activity at all. At that time, it seemed a non-issue for me: I was a late bloomer and very scrawny for several years. When I graduated high school in 1999, I weight 118 pounds.

In college, I started to put on weight - it's very hard to eat even remotely healthfully at the dining hall. Over the course of my undergraduate years, I put on a grand total of 14 pounds by May 2003. My weight at 22 was 132lbs. To some that doesn't seem like a lot, but on me, even gaining 5 pounds puts me in the next jean size up because of the way the weight settles on my body.

I still didn't think of myself as anything but out of shape at that point, so my goal was to get fitter and less flabby. I started my first graduate program immediately, and joined the fitness center at my college. I went faithfully every day, doing either cardio and Nautilus or a combination thereof, for a whole summer. Of course, the fall semester, and my graduate assistant job, started right about the time I was beginning to see some results. Once the semester started in full force, I just never seemed to find time to get to the fitness center. By the end of August 2004, I was pushing 134 lbs.

After I finished my graduate program, I was hired as a special education teaching assistant at the school where I now work as a teacher. Assigned as a one-on-one with an autistic kindergartener, I dropped about ten pounds in two months - not exactly the best way to lose weight, but my weight stayed pretty stable at about 125 for a couple years.

In the spring of 2005, I decided to try getting in shape again, by fits and starts. I did a trial run at a locally owned and operated fitness center that I ultimately didn't care for, and then I joined a reduced cost 3-month membership at the local YMCA. This seemed to be going well. I went two or three times a week to use the Cybex and cardio equipment, took a pilates class and a yoga class. I also signed up for a hip-hop dance class. Right in the middle of all this, I got very ill, and it took about three months to get completely healthy again. Needless to say, I never went back to the YMCA. My weight started creeping back up toward 132lbs.

In the fall of 2006, I met my future husband. He's a very active guy, and I had to be active if I was going to keep up. He got me into snowshoeing and hiking - with his encouragement, I made it up a mountain (literally) on a steep switchbacking roadway in Sicily in April 2007. It was tough, but knowing I could do that made me realize that I could really do anything!

In the spring of 2008, I got back into yoga and started walking around my neighborhood to get in shape. This fall, I signed up for a turbo kick class offered at a local dance studio. My weight doesn't seem to be going up or down, but my pants fit better! My goal was to be toned up and slimmed down, even if my weight didn't drop very much, by my wedding on July 11, 2009.

I began TurboJam on December 8, 2008. While I didn't really lose any weight, I slimmed down about 5 or 6 inches all over my body. On April 6th I started ChaLEAN Extreme, and though I admittedly wasn't completely faithful, I definitely saw some results - my mother had to move the snaps on my wedding dress in an inch AND a month later on my wedding day, my dress was loose again! Thank goodness for a lace-up back!

I took a couple months off from working out, what with all the wedding craziness, the honeymoon, and getting settled in to married life. As I was continuing to take graduate classes as well, so that was just one more thing to juggle. I had a hard time getting back into a workout routine, and my weight shot back up. As of this writing, I'm up ton 137 pounds - but not very many more inches around, which is weird.

Now my 2nd master's degree is done, and I'm finally getting back into the routine. I mapped out a TurboJam rotation for the summer, and I'm trying to get my weight down and get toned up in preparation for a hoped-for new addition to our family.