When it comes to my health, I have had two “ah-ha” moments.

My weight has always fluctuated, but in my second semester of grad school I realized it was greatly affecting my life. I was in my prime, had amazing friends in school, was in a great college town, and I was living like a hermit in my apartment. I was doing well in classes and a lot of my time was spent studying that first year, but each time a social situation arose I panicked. I was not at all comfortable in my skin and rarely wanted to see anyone outside of class.

That was my first “ah-ha” moment.

I could not continue to live that way. I wanted to enjoy myself fully in school, I wanted to meet someone and have a family some day, I wanted to be able to put the best first impression out there to anyone I came across professionally. I couldn’t do that with the way I felt about myself.

[Insert “before” picture, except that I avoided pictures like the plague.]

During the next year I became a regular at group classes at the rec, joined Weight Watchers online and found a system of tracking that worked well for me, and I lost 50lbs during the next year.

Fast forward from 2008 when I graduated to 2013 when I now had a house, a husband, two kids, and a step-daughter…

My second “ah-ha” moment came when My daughter was 6 months old.

After the two kids I was at a much higher weight than I had been before, and my biggest concern was making sure they never struggled like I did. I fed them all the right foods and had to make sure they were watching me do all the right things as well.

I now had a family to take care of and no way of doing things the way I had in school. I wasn’t interested in doing things as I had before either. Sure, I lost weight, but I was a student living alone and ate meals that consisted of an entire head of cauliflower and a 100 calorie pack. That wasn’t the example I wanted to set.

I’ve learned so much in the year I have found the blogging world. Some of the women I have met are amazing and truly inspirational. I have slowly changed my habits, lost just over 50lbs again, been amazed at the fact that I enjoy running when I couldn’t run more than a minute last year, and have watched all these changes rub off on my 1 and 2 year olds.

My kids will pick a snack of cucumbers over most others any day. They always ask to go running with Mom. I even had to buy them some 1lb weights so they can workout with me!

My biggest accomplishment in life has been making these changes for them. It may be difficult at times, but they deserve all my efforts and more. I can’t wait to watch them grow up and do all I can to facilitate a healthy lifestyle and give them all the tools I can to live a happy healthy life!

If you’re interested in what I’ve done differently this time around and what has helped the stat-at-home-momma to be successful, I wrote about it in a post called “My Weight Loss Story and What is Working for Me.”

Be sure to share your “ah-ha” moment at the #blogfest #sweatpink Twitter party tonight at 7pm CST (also follow @fitapproach and @IDEAfit), and you could win a ticket to BlogFest or a SweatPink yoga mat! Also, if you’re going to BlogFest, even if you’re not, You can hear me present my story during the BlogFest a Lightning Round by voting for my proposal, “Blogging Helped Me Lose 50lbs.” Voting ends tonight at midnight and I would love this support for this amazing opportunity!!