Journey to a New Life.

You can ask anyone I know, or who knows me, and they will all agree I have a large passion for hockey, the Pens being my team. I'd be lying if I said that hockey hasn't been one of many motivating factors along my journey.

Some people may not agree with using your favorite hockey team as a method of motivation but it's has helped me immensely. Not the, "Oh hey if I do this, maybe they will notice me more", more like the hard work, determination, preparation, grit, ethic, emotion, adversity, triumph, get knocked down and get right back up again, the highs and lows, tears of sadness and tears of joy of the game.

Hockey for me, is the game and beyond. I've been lucky enough to meet several of the gentlemen on the team and I have nothing but respect for them. Being a fan and following them season in and season out, it's hard not to feel apart of the family. Granted they may never know how much they have an impact on a single person but that doesn't matter. It may sound strange but every single one of them are my heroes alongside my parents, Sam, my brother Bob and my close friends. I learn from them. Seeing their struggles and how they overcome them. You may be thinking, "This is stupid. Why am I reading this? Those hockey players don't care." But that's were you are wrong. Those hockey players do care. I've seen it with my own eyes.

Yes weight loss is on a totally different spectrum than hockey but as far as what goes into both, there is no difference.

Preparation. I look at it this way. The boys get up go to practice and work on what needs done to win a game being later that day or next. To me, doing my exercise and watching what I eat is my practice. Practicing to live a better lifestyle and be healthier. It takes time to learn a new system in hockey, weight loss is a lot like that system. You have to learn it in order to maintain or become better at it and before you know it, it becomes second nature.


Hard Work. You can't just show up for practice and except to become an all-star. Same goes for exercising. I can't just stand there and flail my arms around and expect for loss weight or gain muscle. I've got to work hard to accomplish that. Billy Blanks Jr. (the guy who is on our workout DVD) always reminds you during DVD, "You get back, what you put in." I pretty much live by that day to day.

Adversity. This season for the Pens is surely the definition of fighting through adversity. I face adversity everyday and it's name is, nope not the Flyers, FOOD. There are so many times where I just want to sit down and pig out but I fight the urge, while more like give the urge the middle finger. :)

I could go on and on.

Now I know you must all be saying, but Nicole there ARE differences between weight loss and hockey. Yeah you're right, hockey is 8 months out of the year, weight loss is year round.

I recently stumbled upon this tumblr account called Stop Hating Your Body. and boy did it hit home. It's basically a movement amongst young people on how they can learn to love themselves and their bodies the way they are. Here is their mission statement:

"To love ourselves, every last inch! To support others, help build positive self esteem! This is The Beauty Revolution! This is a place of encouragement, a place to talk about body image, a place for feeling beautiful. No matter what you look like, what color, what gender, what size or however many "flaws", healthy, not healthy, working on it, we are all human, we all deserve to be happy, we all deserve to love ourselves."

I've been fat my entire life and needless to say, I have little to no self esteem. But since Sam and I decided to change our lifestyle for the better, I've noticed some self esteem starting to appear. I'm not afraid to walk in front of people or by a person by myself anymore. I was always afraid that they would judge me or crack a fat joke at me. I hated to be seen at a restaurant or such because I didn't want the, "oh look a fat chick at a restaurant" label. School was especially hard mainly because kids are harsh as all hell. High school was the worse for me. I took advanced classes so I usually ended up with upper classmen. They were ruthless.

I often ask myself, "Why did it take you so long to finally do this?" But the fact is, I am doing this and for the better. My mom confessed to me the other day, after I told her how much I've lost already, that she used to cry at night because she was so worried about my sister and I. The thing is when I was at my starting weight, I never thought I looked bad. I always blamed it on the clothes I wore or the mirror, pathetic? yeah, I know. But seeing my pictures now compared to my pictures then, I honestly cry. I cringe at seeing them. Why did I never notice I looked terrible? Was it because I didn't want to believe I was that over weight or "obese" as the cool people say.

Here is a before and progress picture.

Those may not be the best comparison pictures but lord do I feel bad for Tangradi having to stand next to me looking like that. But yeah just so you get a sense on where I'm at. I've lost 65 pounds but still have 50 more to go to be where I want to be.

All and all I'm learning to love myself for who I am and accepting that I not on this journey just for appearance, yeah being skinny is great but health comes first. Heart disease and cancer unfortunately runs in our family. So biting this over weight issue in the ass now is a must. That is the main motivation for Sam and I.

I could never be where I'm at without all the love and support from my family and friends. I truly appreciate it.

I love you all.

It's been a while since Sam or I posted on here. I apologize!! With the holidays and such, just ugh. But anyways our journey has had a few bumps in the roads need less to say. Christmas was NOT good to me. Gained 12 pounds back (yikes, I know) and I've been struggling to get back to my weight before Christmas, I've got 2 pounds to go to get there and it's almost February. So the 65 pounds mark has to wait another month :/

We've switched up our work out routine by adding Billy Blanks Jr's Cardioke. It might have a lame title but it's absolutely awesome. The 45 minutes goes by so fast because you are really having fun. Also since Christmas, we have added the Wii to our household. Wii Fit is awesome too! Another fun way to burn those calories :) Also Sam and I joined a website called MyFitnessPal.com , thanks to our lovely friend Kayla, it's a site that helps you keep organized of what you are eating and how much you workout. It's a blessing in disguise! The site also has a bunch of supportive people that are rooting for ya on your journey. Pretty amazing site.

Okay I'm going to stop rambling but before I do I wanted to mention a little campaign from our newly acquired friend over at Travel Babbles ! It's for the ladies and it's called, "Project: Do Me."

SO I'm going to "Do Me" and make my goal of being down 10 more pounds by the end of February. :D

Good luck if you are partaking in this project! YOU can do it!


Nicole

As Nikki continues to push forth beyond her 40 lb mark. Here I am, STUCK, at the 35 lb mark. Our goal was to have 40 lbs gone by our 21st Birthday and as Nikki is ahead of that mark - I was determined to work as hard as possible this past week to get it down to at least 2 lbs too(40). This morning I crossed my fingers and stepped on the scale. I was disappointed to see that I was still stuck at that mark. As it is disappointing to me, it just shows me that I am going to have to buckle down even harder to get rid of this weight.

If you guys have any tricks to the trade, PLEASE let me know! I am following my system and strictly watching my food intake but I AM STILL STUCK!

Thank you for all your support!
PS. Got the hair done - you like? hahaha!

-Sammy