Lifestyle change - why?

I didn't have this blog last year so I can't link to a post where I talked about the changes I planned to make.  However I wanted to talk about the changes I did make and reflect on how I did.  This is the first post regarding my lifestyle change.

Let me give you a bit of a history lesson on little ol' me first.  Growing up we always had chips in the house, but not a lot of chocolate or sweets.  When we did, it wasn't something we could just eat as we wanted, we only ate it in moderation.  We had soda in the house but us kids weren't allowed to drink it unless we had pizza for dinner. Soda was something my Dad drank.

Fast forward to when I'm a teenager and have a job.  I would buy junk food and soda and candy, etc. I would eat it all. Fast forward to when I moved out of the house at age 20, the soda and junk food and candy consumption got 10 times worse.  I had stopped being active but didn't gain much weight so I didn't see the point in changing how I ate.

I did try to kick the soda habit over the years but was never successful.  I would do ok for a couple of weeks, maybe even a month, then it was back to drinking a 20oz every day at work.  The problem was that deep down I didn't see a reason to stop. I knew it wasn't healthy, but I loved the taste of it.

Then in November 2009 I stopped cold turkey.  The thing was, I finally thought of a reason why it was worth it and I decided a lifestyle change was in order.  While I had gaining some weight due to not working out (injured) that wasn't too big a deal, heck I was still considered "normal weight", the other reason was.   I had hopes that Husband and I would be starting a family soon. I knew that whenever that happened and whenever I became pregnant I would want to eat healthy for the baby.  I knew I couldn't stop all my horrible eating habits at once, but I could focus on one and then when that was under control I could focus on another.  If I did it this way, I had high hopes that by the time we decided to start a family, my eating habits would be under control and I wouldn't have to change much for a pregnancy.

Once I decided this, things seemed to fall into place for me (as far as eating goes anyway).

Stay tuned for more posts regarding my lifestyle change....don't want to put it all in one post because it's too long, so instead I'm going to be doing a series of posts.  I hope you enjoy!