Living a healthy lifestyle isn’t easy – not one bit! Especially when you’ve spent a vast majority of your life being overweight and unhealthy. Breaking a habit is easy, changing your life is a whole different battle.

For those of you who’ve known me before and after, have followed me through my weight-loss journey or are just getting to know me – over 5- 6 years ago, I decided I needed to change my life. I was an overweight 20-soemthing and had eaten my way to a staggering 300lbs. From dealing with the separation of my parents, growing up in a broken family, battling depression, while discovering who I am and coming out – it took a huge toll on my life. A toll in which I turned to food as my vice to make everything better.

I was able to turn my life around completely, from losing weight, adopting a new lifestyle, eating healthy, being conscious, and taking care of myself mentally, psychically and emotionally. In 2014, I reached a monumental weight-loss goal of losing over 100 pounds. To this day, it still feels like it never happened. I don’t remember the person I used to be. I was never really living in that body, it was just a capsule for the person I would become. I dropped my story on The Huffington Post (click here to read, part 1, part 2) which was one of the scariest things I’ve ever had to face, as for the first time I was going public about something so vulnerable to me.

I received an overwhelming response of congratulations, praise, and people reaching out for help, guidance, advice, or to share their story with me. I was truly humbled. This set the course for the next 6 years to follow. I stuck true to my new lifestyle, there were ups and downs, but I have continued to work my ass off and make it out alive in the end. I continued talking about my story, spreading positive vibes, motivation and more. I even got to have my own dedicated segment on weight-loss and telling my story on Global TV’s, The Morning Show (click here to watch). Like…WHAT!!! *pinch me*

Over the past 8-9 months I’ve felt different, everything has been testing me, from my mind, to my weight, work, personal life, love life, and more. I’ve felt like more than ever I’ve been feeling pressure, like I can’t breathe. It’s hard to do it all and crack a smile at the same time. Sometimes the hustle is going to take a toll on you and you have to keep yourself in check. As much as I’ve learned to balance myself in every which way – food and exercise has more than ever been one of the hardest areas to battle. What seemed like something I mastered has become one of the hardest challenges to overcome in this new stage of my life.

I’ve begun meal prepping which I got the hang of thanks to incredible meal delivery service, Eat, Train, Live. Meal prepping has been a huge help in my life and creating a routine so when I get thrown every which way with my schedule, I’m consistent with my meals – which is SO important.

Even with meal prepping, juicing, working out, having a positive mentality, and doing whatever else you can think of, it doesn’t matter how freaking hard how you try - you are human and you will fail. You will let yourself down, and you will have to face it. And you know what…IT’S OKAY!!! One of the hardest lessons I thought I learned and clearly am still facing each and every day is that it’s ok to screw up, be down on yourself, and eat a whole medium pizza and small pint of ice cream on a Wednesday night for no reason other than you effing needed it. I’ve been struggling so much and it’s so hard. Words can’t describe it. But, I’m working on it, each and every day. We are HUMAN and we will make mistakes and slip up. We aren’t robots and the sooner you realize that, the sooner you can find yourself on a road to where you want to be. Mistakes are made to help teach us lessons. More importantly, it’s getting yourself in check, realizing what happened, why it happened and how to prevent it. We must always look to the past to see where we’re going and what lessons we learned to not repeat them. We are all warriors inside and it’s time we face ourselves. The biggest battles we’ll ever face in our lifetime are always with within.

The human mind is beautiful and so powerful beyond our reach. It’s incredible what we can accomplish and do when we set our mind to something. From never having taken a workout class, to experiencing a RIDE CYCLE CLUB class with LULULEMON, to becoming a spin addict and challenging myself at Barry’s Bootcamp – these are all things that 5 years ago I would have been TERRIFIED of. Now I look at them dead on and embrace them with open arms. The power fear can present in your life will come in many forms, you must always tackle it head on. Do what scares you, because it’s probably going to be worth it.

As much as my journey continues, I am happy to share that I now more than ever feel like I’m living in my own skin. I can’t believe how far I’ve come and I’m so excited for where I’ll take myself next!