Well hello there!!!!! My name is Maribeth and I am a weight watcher. I committed myself for the third and final time in my life to weight watchers almost 18 months ago. I was nearly 400 lbs at 30 years old and a:
- mother to a beautiful miracle baby (26 week preemie) now a healthy 6 year old girl
- wife to a man who is my best friend and biggest cheerleader (although sometimes I could smother him in his sleep)
And all the while even though I had all this good going on in my life and all these blessings I didn’t believe I deserved (back then), I was SO miserable on the inside and outside too. Tired, bitter, angry, full of regret, carrying around unforgiveness in my heart, and eating all of the my feelings. My life was so out of control and I was SO overwhelmed by how far gone I was that I didn’t even believe it possible to turn it all around!
It took a series of events to even wake me up to the fact that if I didn’t CHANGE MY LIFE (FOREVER) I WAS GOING TO DIE AN EARLY DEATH WITHOUT EVER REALLY LIVING!!
The first eye opener was going on a trip with my 85 year old grandmother and 91 year old Aunt, both of whom could easily out walk me while shopping!!!
The second was we had a family get together and invited some close friends for Christmas and during the party my husbands coworker leans over to look at a picture and he says “who is this beautiful young woman in this picture here!?!” IT WAS ME, and he seriously had NO IDEA!!!!!! I was at the time of the photo, about 100-125 lbs smaller than I was standing there in the same room as him, and I was unrecognizable to who I once was!!!!!!!
That did it, well sort of (along with generally being sick and tired of being sick and tired of how bad I felt and how uncomfortable in my own skin I had become). The next week I walked into my 3rd and final meeting and TRULY making the COMMITMENT to working the weight watchers plan, because I knew it was the ONLY thing that truly worked for me and would work from now on for me!!!!!!
Lots of things had changed since the last time I had been a weight watcher, but the greatest change was the CONNECT Community. All the sudden I had a whole world of people in my pocket that were rooting for me, who could relate to my story, that I could relate to their stories, and I have truly made lasting and genuine friendships some in person and some via talk or text with amazing warriors just like myself!
It didn’t matter where they came from, who they loved, how they worshiped, what color their skin was, of all the differences between us we could still relate, encourage, support, and rally for one another because despite of all the things in life that might divide us our mission here in this community was the same: TO SIMPLY BE BETTER VERSIONS OF OURSELVES!!!! Being better to ourselves, in return makes us all (at least it certainly has been the case for me) able to be better to each other!!!!
I know that at any point in my journey that I am struggling, need encouragement, need guidance, or just simply need a cheerleader there is a someone out there who has my back, who can relate to my story, and I hope others feel the same about me!! I want to know that I can do this even when it’s hard, and I wanna help others believe they can do it too!!
So if you need that extra encouragement or just a friend who can say “I totally get you” I think you can totally find one here!! I love that as we get smaller our world (and TRIBE) gets SO MUCH BIGGER!!!
I am proud to say that I am over 110 pounds down and I’m not stopping anytime soon. If you are on connect please come find me!
Connect (KIND) 