This guest post comes to you from Erin at Eating Away Ernie. She’s a mother-of-three who has had quite the journey of battling weight. She is working on herself physically, yes. But she is also working on changing her mentality toward food and exercise. And for that, I applaud her. Please read her journey – I know she would love your input and advice: 

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My journey?

Truthfully…my journey…this journey to a slimmer, healthier me, has just begun…and if you’re expecting one of those “I just decided to do it one day and I did!” kind of story you might just want to skip this guest post.

My name is Erin, Ernie to those who read my blog (Eating Away Ernie) and I’m a 29 year old stay-at-home Mom to three young children, ages 5, (almost) 4, and 13 months…Again, if you are now expecting a story about a multitasking, jack-of-all-trades, housewife and mother who’s children and home are always in perfect order just stop reading now. I’m a HORRIBLE housekeeper! Just ask my husband David, he’ll tell you…CONSTANTLY!!! Many friends, family, and even strangers told me that three kids are the hardest number. Well, they were SOOO RIGHT and I don’t plan to test that theory by having any more! My youngest is just over a year old and I’m still struggling to find any kind of balance in my day to day life. I’m horrible with time management and when I get overwhelmed I tend to just………………….procrastinate.

I absolutely LOVE my children and love to just sit and hang out with them while they play. I’m a very indoorsy girl and I absolutely LOVE MOVIES! However, my kids like to be outside (only God knows why) and I do usually enjoy myself when I can get myself to go out, but the weight I have gained over the years makes me want to stay inside even more. So, part of my motivation to get slim and healthy is so I can play around with my kids outside and not feel so self conscious and sweat and/or hyperventilate to death.

I was never an “exercise” person. The only sport I participated in during high school was the powder puff football game my senior year…and that was only because I was under the impression that the seniors were “guaranteed” to win. My senior year, they decided that “guarantee” wasn’t valid anymore and we sucked it up. The juniors smoked us and I even sprained my ankle pretty badly, which I was somewhat proud of, because it meant that I “took one for the team.” It was my first experience in running on adrenaline, seeing as I was unaware of how badly I hurt my ankle until after the game was over and I found that I could barely walk on it.

I wasn’t completely inactive my whole life. I took dance classes, roller skating lessons, swimming lessons, and horseback riding lessons (not all at the same time!). My husband David was the runner. he was on the cross country team in the fall and on the track team in the spring. Running never appealed to me…at all…in any way! I’d much rather have a Dawson’s Creek Series DVD ‘marathon’ than run even for a minute straight.

I ended high school in 2001 weighing 135 lbs. and wearing a size 7-8 jeans, my smallest ever.

At age twenty David and I decided to move in together and that is when everything went downhill…weight wise. ; ) I slowly started to put on weight and by the time we got married in August 2004 I was around 180 lbs.

When I got pregnant with my first child in July 2006 I was hovering close to the 200 lb. mark and by the time I delivered I was 235 lbs.

When I got pregnant with my second child I was around 210 lbs. I was again at 235 lbs. when I delivered him. If I hadn’t delivered him two months early I stood to gain even more! I lost about 15 lbs. right after having my son, but he had to stay in the NICU for 5 weeks over an hour drive away…there was lots of fast food and lots of Cold Stone Creamery! I gained that 15 lbs. back by the time we brought him home.

In 2009 I found out that I was pregnant again. I was around 238 lbs. at the time and was worried about how much I was going to gain, but I ended up miscarrying just shy of the 12 week mark due to a blighted ovum. Somehow that experience motivated me to lose weight. I started watching what I ate, taking in between 1000-1100 (I know now that is WAY too low) calories a day. I ate every four hours and had water with me all of the time. I gave up pop and fast food and packed a lunch for myself and my two boys whenever I knew we wouldn’t be home for lunch so I wouldn’t be tempted to stop at McDonald’s. *The few times I did stop at McDonald’s I was either able to resist (have no idea how I did that) or I knew which items were the lowest calories and I chose those. In a period of 4 months I lost 40 lbs. and had just made it back below the 200 lb. mark by just changing my eating habits. I did not exercise at all during that time. However, my birthday rolled around and I was helping my Mom find a new apartment. Whenever my Mom and I are together we like to have a good time…and that always involves yummy, not so good for you food. So my birthday exception dinner turned into a week of eating way too much and very poorly. I did get back to my regular eating schedule after that week, but I paid for my crimes…I didn’t lose any weight for a month and being discouraged, I gave up on my healthier eating habits.

The start of 2012 brought the same resolution I have every year…to lose all this damn weight! I was 247 lbs…the most I’ve ever weighed. A facebook friend of mine introduced me to a woman and her blog (only the second blog I’ve ever ‘really’ read). I learned all about Katie at Runs for Cookies and her journey to losing over 120 lbs. and becoming a runner. I started to get interested in running. Katie made it sound so AWESOME! I planned to start out slow…just start walking, but after reading Katie’s 30×30 list I decided to make one of my own. One of my goals was to walk the Crim 10 mile race. Its a big time race in my part of Michigan…thousands of people participate. While looking at the Crim’s website I saw that they were, for the first time, giving out scholarships for their Crim Adult training program. A 15 week training program to get you ready for the Crim race…whether you wanted to run or walk in it. I thought, why not? I’ll submit my info for the scholarship. They were giving out twenty scholarships and it is a very popular training program…and I never win anything (except that time I actually got through to the radio station and won Dierks Bentley concert tickets…WOOHOO! I sounded like a complete dork on the radio) so I wasn’t very optimistic. About two weeks later I got a phone call explaining that I had been chosen for a scholarship!!!

We started training May 15th and the Crim race is August 25th. The training to walk the 10 mile race with a goal to finish had me walking 6 days a week. After one week of the Crim training I decided that I wanted to also start doing the Couch to 5k training program. At first I tried to still exercise 6 days a week, but my legs were killing me, so I am now only walking the day we have group training and I do my C25K training three other days for a total of four days a week. I’ve really surprised myself with my capability to run. Its so weird to think that I just started week 5 of the C25K training, which today had be running for 5 minutes straight, three separate times (15 total minutes running!?) when I thought I was going to die doing the very first 60 second run during the very first C25K workout! I’ve come so far already and even have my first 5k today (July 12th!) I don’t think I’ll be able to run the whole thing, but I’m going to run more of it than I walk! You can check back in with me tomorrow over at my blog to see how I did!

My exercise routine is going so well that I was expecting to lose more weight than I have, but I cannot seem to get my eating under control. Not that I’m binging all the time or anything, but I can’t seem to get myself into a healthier eating pattern. Its becoming more and more apparent to me how much of an emotional aspect there is to what and how much I eat. I am really struggling with it and with the added stress I have been under lately trying to figure out the next steps to take after being diagnosed with MS this past December my eating habits have been pushed to the back of my mind most of the time. I need to make it just as important as I’ve been making my exercise. I’ve read how weight loss is 10% exercise and 90% diet and that is right on! I have gone weeks lately without seeing the scale budge the way I want it to. I know that if I could just get myself to make healthier food choices I would really start to see that number on the scale drop but I just can’t get past that mental block…that first MAJOR craving…that temptation at a get together. So many of the ‘fun’ times I have are wrapped up with food. I need to break that cycle and its proving to be much harder than any of the running I’ve done…which is funny because I always thought that exercise was the hard part.

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 Lastly, a question for you…What helps you get past those barriers to healthy eating?