I’ve tried lots of diets before. I’ve gone on and off Weight Watchers. I’ve tried Atkins. I’d start a diet and maybe stay on it for a month and then I would cave into whatever else everyone else around me was eating. I wasn’t really looking at dieting in a positive, healthy, nutritious way like HMR. HMR’s plan gave me that structure and it gave me guidelines around what I need to eat. It gave me the tools I needed to stay focused.

Before I came to HMR, I was a lot more sedentary, a little bit more reclusive. I was hiding under my clothes. I never tucked a shirt in. I never wore a sleeveless shirt. And now, I love to go shopping. Before HMR, I was wearing a size 24 and shopping at all the plus size stores. Now, I can go to any store and try on a size 8 and it fits and it looks good. It’s given me a lot more self confidence.

It’s also great to be able to go places with my kids and not worry about being able to fit in the seats with them. If we go to an amusement park, I don’t have to wonder if I’m going to get the seat belt around me when we ride the go cart. I was always self-conscious about going to a baseball game because I worried that I was going to get stuck in the seat. Those are things I had to think about before. Now, I can go anywhere and I don’t think twice about it.

I’m always on the go now. I don’t come home and take a nap. I come home, change clothes and go work out. Exercise has become a way of life for me. I’ve walked the Susan G. Komen 3-day breast cancer walk for the past 3 years (over 2,000 miles walked in training!) and I’ve run my first 5K race. These are things I never would have imagined possible before coming to HMR.

In the past, I felt like there was a thin person inside of me trapped under all this weight. I now feel like I’ve emerged from a cocoon. It’s exciting to be able to do the things that I can now do physically. I have a lot more energy and it’s helping my kids see that yeah, maybe mom and dad made bad choices and they didn’t take care of themselves, but now they know what to do. I’m hoping to set a good example for them.