My Story

So my story begins on March 31, 1989 I was born to my proud parents on a rainy Friday. As a young child my dad started to play tennis with me from the get go. Meaning he and my mom would play while she was pregnant. For the majority of my childhood my driveway was a tennis court and all afternoon we would hit the ball. This soon stopped after our shots became too powerful and we were taking out the cars of our neighbors. It was time to move to the courts. Every night weather permitting we would play well on to midnight. Now I never played a match till I got to high school so working out for me was a FUN activity.

When I started high school I decided to try out for the tennis team, I never had any expectations I just wanted to play. As soon as the coach say me hit my strokes he called me over, “hey sunshine” LOL. He did not even have time to get to know my name. I was soon able to beat everyone on my team and I became the #1 girls singles player. Boy was I happy! For never having played a match I had done well. This moment of happiness was short lived, when I played the other girls in the county. They were trained tennis players and used to a long match and played to win. I on the other had was still hitting in my driveway. Looking back even though I lost most of my matches I would like to say I played hard and made my opponents earn their victory. I contained to stay at #1 for all  4 years of high school and I even won 3rd place out of the region in doubles 🙂

Enter college , the dreaded freshmen 15! As soon as I got to campus I rushed to join the tennis club, however playing every few weeks was not the same as having matches 3-4 times a week. So between the lack or working out and hardcore studying and my LOVE of all foods junk I packed on 152 pounds to my 5’3 frame. This hit me in the face when I went in for my physical and my doctor told me I had slightly elevated levels of cholesterol. AT 19!!!! I was soo upset. With 17 pounds to lose I got started on my new diet.

My diet contained low sodium, brown rice and pita, tons of fruits and veggies, oatmeal and BEANS!

All that combined with a 5 am boot camp and kickboxing in the evening, the weight MELTED off my body in three months I was down to 139. Now I knew with school my diet was not going to be the same but I had a plan, by bringing food from home I was able to maintain what I had lost. This along with my aerobics and abs class I was teaching, it was a fool proof plan to keep me at a low weight. I was able to keep my weight low from September till December. When I got mono, with being sick I was not able to eat and my weight dropped to 133. However I was very weak and unable to exercise. It was also at that point I started to experience some lower back pain ( I ignored this for 8 months).

Spring semester 2009: My plan to bring food from home failed when I ran out of time to pack meals and my food started to go bad. Not living on campus gives me limited options for food. So with campus food, back pain and no exercise my weight started to climb again. I weighed in at 151 in August which was my weight in June of 2008

Summer 2009: My back pain was UNBEARABLE I spent most of my time laying or sitting in the library for hours, finally my mom dragged me to the doctors and 2 months of physical therapy and an MRI later ( during the MRI I learn that I was claustrophobic LOVELY) I was diagnosed with a Pars fracture of the spine which is pinching a nerve going down to my leg.

Knowing this makes me feel better because I know why I have not been able to move or walk as well. What I regret is waiting sooooo long to get this result. I though it would just go away on its own. I am still unsure of what my treatment is, but I need to rest for 6-8 weeks.

The CHALLENGE: losing weight without being able to run and figuring out how to eat healthy while commuting to college!