My cousin Linda called me after seeing that I was getting several posts on FB about joining a gym and starting  to work out.  They were all so positive and she thought I should start a blog about what I am going through.  I turned 43 years old this March.  I really had it all worked out to be thin by the time I was forty, it never happened.  I am sore everyday, I can't keep up with my three boys.  They have never known me as anything else but a fat mom.  I have cheated myself, my boys and my husband out of many years of a better me.  I have a terrible relationship with food, it's never about hunger.  I have never stuck it out long enough with exercise to feel anything but defeated, sore and tired.   I have every disease represented in my family that happens to fat people.  Even after seeing my mom go through open heart surgery and struggling with arthritis, needing her knees replaced, and having diabetes.  I guess I fooled myself for years it won't effect me.  It wasn't until this past year that I really started to feel the effects of a lifetime of being fat. Shortness of breath, sore body, back pain, I couldn't run out of a burning building if I had to.  I have a lot of baggage that is represented by every pound that I have put on this 5'7 frame. I am strong though, who wouldn't be carrying around at my highest 314 ponds.  I am losing that strength in age and it bothers me greatly.  I may not be a trophy wife but I could always help move a washing machine with my husband and I never had to ask for help to pick things up or move furniture. All that baggage has caused me to not live to my full potential.  There is too much to go into here today.  I do know that even though it was hard, the things that I have been through have made me good or bad the person I am today and that God was there with me the whole time even when I didn't want to see him or even knew he could love that horrible little girl.  I am going to write about what I am going through, what I have been through, how it effects my family and friends and about those who are helping me or hindering me on my journey to a healthier physically and mentally me.  Come join me on my journey. Tami Moody