So when I started on this journey of—I don’t want to call it weight loss, but a life change—I wasn’t sure what to expect. I just knew that I was going through a lot of changes in my life; my dad died, my boyfriend had dumped me, and I was just starting to exercise. And what one of the coaches at the gym told me kept coming back into my head: you can’t out-exercise a bad diet.

So that’s when I knew I had to get my eating on track. Is my journey slow? Yes, but I want to make sure that it sticks. I have discovered so many foods and so many different ways to prepare foods that I never knew existed. My favorite food now is cauliflower; I mean, what can’t you make with it? 

So along with learning new foods, I am learning new habits, which are sustaining me and helping me to continue with my journey, one that I am proud of because I am starting to see the results, the results that others see, but I hadn’t been able to see in myself.