Hi Melissa, thanks for posting ur pics, it motivated me. I was also curious if you read karen moning and what kind of writing you do. Your opening line about ur post caught my attention and reminded me of one of characters.

Hi there Anon,

I have not read Karen Moning. Which post reminded you of her writing? I’m curious. Mostly the types of writing that I do are here on this blog, and for work. I write the news and I write stories for the website and social media. My not so secret dream is to one day write a book. I really need to start working on that!

Thanks for following along! I hope I can continue to motivate you. Hard work and perseverance has truly paid off for me. It can for you too!

My current state. The tooth infection from last month has reared its ugly head again. Sigh. I’m doped up on Augmenten and Hydrocodone. At work. So that’s fun. The ice pack is helping, but the pain is INTENSE this time around. Fingers crossed it goes away soon, I have Vacation the next 3 days!!

Tuesday things:

I took my tax stuff to my accountant. FINALLY!
We had a Dunk Contest at work today. It was fun! It was for a sports segment that will air on the news Thursday night. Good stuff.
I had a list of so many other things I wanted to write about. But the Hydrocodone has wiped it from my mind. Next post I guess.
I got some messages, I will respond ASAP, and when I’m not drugged up!

Happy Tuesday Friends!!

Oh hey there White Pants!

Full confession: I haven’t owned white jeans in years!

There are a few reasons why: I thought I was too fat, and I once read an article that said no one over size 10 should wear white pants. I took those words to heart and never wore them again…until now!

I’m digging the Chambray shirt and white pants combo.

In Other news:

I ran 12 miles this past weekend. Some of it on the Marathon route. It was a good run. Decent time and with some fairly gusty winds. I’m pleased.
5th date went well! 😉
Ex-Man Friend and I are now at the point in our friendship where we now talk about our dating lives. That’s interesting. And good.
Sunday was 75 degrees and sunny. I spent the day in shorts and flip flops reading outside. Perfect day.
Today we saw 72 degrees now we’re down into the 50’s. Stupid cold fronts.
Tomorrow is my Friday! Vacation for the rest of the week! Hooray!

Hope you have a great week friends!!

So I accidentally deleted this question last night. But here it is again. There are a number of factors that go into weight loss… how much you currently weigh, how much you are eating, how fast you are walking. But, the average amount you should lose (in a healthy way) in that time period would be anywhere from 8-10 pounds. You should expect to lose 1-2 pounds a week. But if you weigh more, your initial weight loss will be more, especially at the beginning.

When I first started losing weight I lost 20 pounds the first month–just by cutting back on bad foods! But I also weighed 295 pounds. Now that I weigh 150ish pounds it takes a lot more for me to lose any weight.

Make sense?

Got any more questions? Just ask!

I’m not too sure if you have asked this already but how much weight have you loss? You look amazing! Did you have any excess skin? I’m currently in my weight loss journey and struggling big time. You are inspiring!! F8

Hey there Anon! I’ve lost 150 pounds. I’m 5’9" and I used to weigh 295 pounds. I currently hover between 145 and 155. Depending on the time of the month! 😉 Thank you for the compliment!

Excess skin–only a bit on my lower tummy. But its really not a big deal to me anymore. I think I don’t have a lot of excess skin because I lost the weight slowly, I was fairly young (26ish) and I got lucky.

I’m sorry you’re struggling. Know that its totally normal. I plateaued at 90 pounds lost for a long time before I was able to reset my metabolism and lose the rest of the weight. I hope my journey can inspire you and help you on your way.

I had to reset the way I thought about food and exercise. Before I used to be obsessed with foods that didn’t nourish me, sweets and whatnot. But now I’m obsessed with good foods and running. It’s a trade-off! 🙂

I hope this helps you! Let me know if you need anything else!

Hi! I just found your blog and you are such an inspiration to me :) I just have one question what did you do for exercise when you first started losing weight?

Thank you! I hope I can help you on your journey! When I first started losing the weight I just started by walking. My friends and I went to the gym 3-5 times a week and walked on the treadmill and lifted weights. Then I tried the elliptical. And I did that for a long time, until I discovered running. I also did that on the treadmill at first too. But now running outside is WAYYYY better to me than running on the treadmill. But I still will log insane mileage on the ‘mill. I once did a half marathon on the treadmill. I don’t recommend it.

But it all comes down to this: you can’t out-exercise a bad diet. So I radically changed my diet too. I hope this helps! Good luck! And please let me know if I can help you in anyway!

Hi there! Your progress is impressive but your posts are equally impressive. I rarely just go, like, “hello you’re awesome” on someone’s blog, but I just had to stop and say hello. I absolutely ADORE positive, healthy blogs that are still somehow REAL, know what I mean? Haha. Well this is getting to be pretty long so I’ll wrap it up. You have a new fan! xoxo Keep on keeping on! :)

Thank you so much! This needs to live on my blog forever! What a nice thing to say. With me, what you see is what you get. I really have no filter. Sometimes, that can be a bad thing, I suppose! 🙂 Thanks for the comments and following along on this crazy journey!

Holy New Followers, Batman!

So there I was on Friday night, just minding my own business, working at Corky, and things started happening.

My phone began blinking with Tumblr notifications. Non-stop. When I finally checked it, I had hundreds of reblogs, likes and a bunch of new followers from this post from last summer that had suddenly blown up. (I’m super glad that I posted a picture of me in my PJ’s with NO BRA ON that has blown up on the internet. Good call, Melissa!) As the weekend progressed it kept gaining momentum. And here we are.

I’m overwhelmed. The comments and reblogs are so awesome. When I found those pants last summer, I had forgotten about them. I think I had forgotten what it was like to be that girl. But I hadn’t. She’s still inside me. With me in every action, thought and moment. I’ve just stopped seeing myself as that girl. Make sense? I hope so.

So with that, let me introduce myself:

I’m Melissa. I’m 32. I live in Nebraska. I’m a TV News Producer, and I work at a Wine and Paint Studio (called The Corky Canvas) on the side. I love to run, read, hang out with friends and family and laugh. I write about my life, from fitness and running, to work to my very laughable dating life. The good, the bad and the ugly. It’s all here. I used to weight 295 lbs. I’ve lost 150 lbs. Life is good.

This is me, March 15, 2014:

This is me at my heaviest in 2004:

I’ve gotten a few messages, I will answer those asap. Thanks for joining me on this journey friends!

A Jumble of thoughts

Dating is weird. Like it’s all, “Hey you, person I’ve just met, or know a little bit about. Let’s put our lips together, exchange saliva and put our tongues in each other’s mouths. And do other things.” (wink, wink). (Am I weird to think that this is weird? Maybe. Whatever. Dating IS strange.)
I’m dog-sitting for a few days. My parent’s mini dachshunds, Molly and Sophie are here. They are little princesses. And bark a lot. They also feel the need to sleep with me in my bed. For 7 & 10 pound dogs they take up a lot of space! We spooned all night long. My queen size bed felt very small.
But look how adorable they are!!!!
Corky Tonight. Let’s make some cash!
I have a 5th Date tomorrow night. 😉 Should be fun!
Good Morning America! has a promo with the song “Happy” We shot some footage to put in promos on our station of us doing happy dances. It’s fun. And slightly embarrassing. Maybe I’ll post it here if I’m not too horrified with my dance moves!
The weather is perfect for my 12 miles tomorrow. 60’s, sunny and slight breeze. Highs near 80 on Sunday, but crazy winds! Whatevs, nice weather is nice weather.
I’M ON VACATION NEXT WEEK! Well, Wednesday thru Friday. YAY!

Have a great weekend friends!!!

That Moment When…

you get an email from The Associated Press reminding you that you agreed to judge the 2014 Mississippi Associated Press Broadcast Awards and they don’t have anything from you yet…and the due date is March 31st, and are you going to be able to get it done by that time?

Oh, and there are 12 categories to judge! By Monday! There goes my free time.

Crap.