Here's my first entry. . Part 1: The beginning of a WONDERFUL Journey

So I'll share a little bit about myself. I'm a 32 year old mother of 1 beautiful daughter named Kyndal. Prior to having kids I was a collegiate athlete where I weighed somewhere between 150 - 160lbs and wore about a size 10 and thought I was in good shape. After college I kept working out consistently for the first year then slowly that began to dwindle but I was still fooling myself and believing  I was in good shape because my stomach was flat and in the mirror I looked good. As the time went by the weight started increasing little by little by little and eventually I weighed in around 180 +. Again I wasn't all that moved by it for some reason, then suddenly I became ill with a terrible stomach virus and lost 25-30lbs in a few weeks and I was back down to 150-155lbs and couldn't have been happier. As you all know that weight eventually came back and it came back with some extra friends and by the time I weighed in at my first prenatal appointment which was only about 6wks into my pregnancy I was 192lbs. I WAS ABSOLUTELY DEVASTATED!! I already knew I would gain weight due to the pregnancy which I had no control over and I am starting at 192lbs?!?!? We will fast forward to the end of the pregnancy and I finally weighed in around 245-250lbs WOWOWOW!! A few days after her delivery I weighed in around 230lbs which was just unbelievable to me. I kept hoping the weight would come off with breastfeeding but it didn't come off the way I expected and that was due to the fact that I was totally out of shape at the beginning of the pregnancy and I couldn't expect breastfeeding alone to resolve the problem I had.
Six months after having Kyndal I was watching TV one evening and an infomercial came on for The FIRM. Well orginally being from Columbia, SC I knew all about The FIRM and what a good program they had, so I quickly ordered it because there was no way I was going to the gym looking like this. I couldn't have been happier to receive my little treat in the mail. When it arrived I immediately weighed myself in and  I was still over 200lbs. . . 225lbs to be exact. That was the night when I took these pictures: February 2005. I was completely and utterly DEVASTATED again!! Even looking at them today I am floored and almost to the point of tears thinking back to that day. I didn't even recognize myself! WHO HAD I BECOME? CAN THE REAL KENISHA PLEASE STAND UP?!?! I mean what was seriously going on! It was time to devise a plan and CHANGE THE GAME!
I trained at home for a few months using The Firm and began loosing some weight but I knew I had to kick it up a notch and get back into the gym. At this point I had enough knowledge to know the lifting and cardio would help me get this goal accomplished quicker. In the evenings during this time I was also flooding myself with knowledge and information. I Googled almost everything in creation to find my answers and somehow I stumbled across Michelle Berger AKA "BUFFMOTHER" at the time it was just a Yahoo group but I quickly joined and read posts and information until I was overwhelmed and in tears. Here were other women like me who had children and they were FIT & FABULOUS! I was officially on a mission. That weekend I joined the gym and the journey had now been kicked up a notch.

Needless to say I was slapped in the face with another revelation that I was worse off then I thought fitness wise. I would go LATE at night as to keep from seeing people I knew and ride the bike, train on the elliptical and run on the treadmill and please believe when I tell you I was sucking wind like there was no tomorrow and my legs were on fire as if they were burning from the inside. I had never experienced anything like this in my life. I HONESTLY couldn't do more than 5min on the elliptical before I started huffing like I smoked all the cigarettes ever made in North Carolina. But I didn't quit! I began getting more and more knowledge from Michelle and the other Buffmothers and I started seeing changes. About 5months later I was seeing some progress as displayed the picture to the left from July '05.

Still not acceptable but at least I was starting to have a resemblance of some sort of shape. Don't know what shape that was but hey I had it, LOLOL!! I kept flooding myself with knowledge and learning from Michelle who had turned out to be an absolute GOD Send!! She is the sweetest person I could have even encountered on this journey and she assured me I could make it and I would reach my goals as long as I continued working hard. During this time I experienced a lot of plateaus, so I knew I still needed to turn up the volume but what could  I do. . . . . I decided to do like a lot of my other Buffmother's and COMPETE in a figure competition and really get this ball rolling. This was around October  and I took another picture. Looking back on it I was still looking like a linebacker but at the time I was seeing progress. Unfortunately I'm not 100% sure of my weight at this time but it wasn't where I wanted to be that's all I know.

I began learning more and more about nutrition and the affects healthy eating will play in speeding up my progress and I was HOOKED. I mean I was reading every website, blog, journal, magazine, government nutritional website you name it I read it and I have notebooks, torn out pages, notes to myself and the whole 9 to prove it. I was just becoming a huge sponge and it awakened something in me that I thought was gone and that was my passion for fitness. When I finished high school and entered college I wanted to major in sports fitness but not knowing what I would do with a career like that I went into computers and put that on the back burner. Things began progressing much better and by March 06 I no longer had extreme love handles and honches. I know you're like what in the world are honches LOLOLOL well its another word for saddlebags. So I got brave and put on a 2 piece swimsuit while on vacation. Looking back again a decision slightly gone wrong but hey I'd come a long way BABY in 1yr and 1mo.  At this point I could accept how I was looking that since I had come from 225lbs in my first picture. Unfortunately I can't dig up any pictures from me at my heaviest and that's probably because I was avoiding the cameras for good reason. So we will end part 1 of my journey here and begin with part 2: The Year of Major Change!!