“Three years ago, I wanted to end it all. I had my plan in place of how to end my life. It was March 18th, 2013. I was at my lowest point in my life. My highest weight was 447 pounds. I only ate junk food. I drank alcohol at least 3 times a week. I felt I was worthless. I hated myself. I was depressed. I didn’t have anybody. I didn’t have support. A couple of days before I planned to end my life, I threw my back out. For some reason, I decided to go see my chiropractor, who was a special person in my life. I think because she was such a big influence, I wanted to say goodbye to her. Somehow, without her knowing, she mentally got me over doing it. After that appointment, I stopped my plan and my feelings slowly started to change. It was a slow process. I started seeing her everyday to adjust my back and slowly over time, that started to help. It made me happy that she never said anything to me about losing weight. She had encouraged me to start walking, so 2 weeks after the day I had planned to end my life, I started walking everyday. I could barely go any distance. I started with 10 minutes a day and slowly added more time. For the first year, I only walked and biked. Eventually, I started getting bored with that so I knew I needed something different. I hired trainers that I’ve been working out with consistently for 2 years now. And when I started attending a local workout class, I started surrounding myself with all of these positive people and I started making new friends. When that happened, I really fell in love with working out. I’ve maintained over a 150 pound weight loss and even though I’m not at the weight I wish I was at, it makes me happy that I am doing things I could’ve never done 3 years ago. I truly feel like I’m a completely different person. I felt like if I would have killed myself, nobody would’ve even noticed I was gone. And now, I have all these friends and great support. If I wasn’t healthy, and if I hadn’t turned my life around, I wouldn’t have all of these amazing people in my life. I know I’m doing everything possible for me to stay healthy. I still have bad days where I have the same feelings from before of not liking myself, but now I know how to get over those moments. I want to continue working out everyday. I used to worry about falling back, but now if I miss a day or two, I know my friends will ask where I am and why I wasn’t in class. The support is everything. I know 100% that if I have a setback now, I can get back up and keep moving ahead.”