I'm going to be real and personal today, y'all. I know a lot of bloggers talk about their work out regimes and meal plans, and let me start off by saying that that's not what this is, and it's not what my blog is going to become. These posts will be infrequent (probably about once a month), but I felt that sharing my story will hold me more accountable, and who couldn't use a little more accountability?

First off, I have type 1 diabetes, which I was diagnosed with when I was nine years old. While I try not to let it affect my life too largely, it's not really something you can forget about. While your life can still be "normal," some things have to be worked around, but that's just how it is. I take an average of four insulin shots a day (yes, jabbing needles into my skin), and I have to keep my diabetes in check, or other things in my life can go wrong (organ failure, infertility or difficulty having children, etc.). My diabetes hasn't been well controlled most of my life, but I'm trying to make a change for the better, and while that sounds like an easy thing to do, it is difficult for me.

I understand that other people have more difficult things in their life going on- poverty, war, genocide, cancer, but please don't push what I deem as difficult to me to be unimportant. I'm spilling my heart here.

So, I recently read a book (It Was Me All Along by Andie Mitchell- more information here) and it kind of made me feel like crap about myself. See, the thing is, I weigh 230 pounds. Any doctor will tell me that, according to my BMI, I am morbidly obese. I don't see myself that way, but it still sucks when it's in the back of your mind. I've gained 30 pounds in probably the past two years, and around 30 more the two years before that.

What's more is that I have a crazy unhealthy relationship with food. I love it. I will eat all the food. I will eat until I'm uncomfortably full, because I don't want to waste it, I want to taste it all, I just want to eat it. I'm uncomfortable with the amount of food that I eat, so I bring it up, I discuss it, I make jokes about it.

My first rule of getting fit is that I'm not going to diet. I want to learn to control my portions and eat what I want, but do it the right way. In addition, I will make sure to be active. I try to go to the gym for at least three days a week (I've been doing this for three full weeks) and do cardio. I hop on the elliptical for 45 minutes to an hour and read a book. I've also made a plan to start walking for 30 minutes during lunch every day with a co-worker.

I'm confident with these small, but significant, lifestyle changes, I will be able to start living a healthier life. It's easy to say I will make these changes, but putting them into practice will be the hard part.

I'd love to keep you updated on these changes I'm making and the processes that I'm going through; what's working and what's not. I hope you'll follow along and help support me in this fitness journey.