A Little Sparrow Trying to Get Fit: An Introduction

Hi there, everyone!

My name is Mauren, I’m a 21 year old senior who attends Hendrix College in Conway, Arkansas. I’m a English with an emphasis on Film Studies major and I’m obsessed with The Lord of the Rings and all things cinematic.

I’ve been running this blog for almost a year now (crazy, I know) and it’s been through just as many changes as myself.

I started this blog at the end of January of 2011 in order to lose weight before I studied abroad.

Prior to starting up the blog, I’d already been on a year-long weight loss journey: my freshman year of college I reached a whopping 270 pounds, was morbidly obese, and was also incredibly unhappy with the lifestyle I was living.

Here are some photos of me at my heaviest:

(Me on the left.)

At 270 pounds, I was miserable. I was unhappy, my self-esteem was at an all-time low, and I just finally had enough.

And I worked HARD to lose weight. From January to August of 2010 I busted my ass…and lost 60 pounds.

If you can’t tell, I’m the one in the brown dress. I weighed 210 pounds and apparently had terrible posture.

I felt great! People complimented me on my weight loss, I felt pretty for the first time in my whole life, and things were looking up.

But then I got complacent.

With new friends and heaps of schoolwork, I quit working out and wasn’t making healthy choices at all…and wound up actually gaining back 30 pounds that I’d lost.

I don’t have any pictures of me at 240, but these were pretty close.

I was pissed off at myself for letting myself go! Furious, really.

But then I realized that I had some serious things coming up: Spring Break, summer vacation, and then, eventually, studying abroad in New Zealand.

I didn’t want to go through life the unhappy fat girl, and I especially didn’t want to do it in another country, when you can honestly become anyone you want to be.

So I started up this blog…it was called Hot for New Zealand at first, because I really just wanted to get “hot” for New Zealand.

From the middle of January to July of 2011, I, again, busted my ass and saw results. Before I left for New Zealand, I’d reached my lowest weight ever of 186 and was in the best shape of my life.

I was my skinniest in summer-sunshine, shorts, and lots of running in the heat.

I went to New Zealand confident, sassy, and ready to take on the world. I kept up my workout program (as well as the blog, renamed Hot in New Zealand because I was actually in New Zealand haha) during school and tried to stay as healthy as possible…but the partying lifestyle of New Zealand really put a damper on my motivation to focus on losing weight.

At my most fit. Want to get back here so badly!

I ditched the scale and tried to make healthy choices, which worked well until I started to travel on my own. Then things went kinda sorta downhill. Cheap food isn’t healthy food, and when I was constantly moving from city to city, I never found time to workout.

I wound up gaining quite a bit of weight, which honestly isn’t surprising. 10-15 pounds. (I don’t know the actual weight gain, my weight has been fluctuating quite a bit since I’ve come home).

Me at my starting weight.

I’m sick of this yo-yo weight gain and loss. I’m ready, and more determined than ever, to get back into the healthy lifestyle and get to my ultimate goal weight of 170 pounds…for good!

That’s where this blog comes in.

No longer in New Zealand (which was a truly amazing experience…if you want to read about it, I created a study abroad blog called There and Back Again: A Student’s Tale!), I changed the blog name to Fit Sparrow (Sparrow is my middle name on Facebook) and am planning on using the blog to finally reach my goals while inspiring and getting inspired by the Fitblr community.

I’ll be posting my daily calorie intakes, my exercises, and tips and tricks. Please never hesitate to message me or ask me any questions at all. I love getting to know fellow Fitblrs <3

I hope this blog can be a wonderful tool for weight loss, and I can’t wait to carry on using it to meet amazing people all on the journey to a healthy lifestyle.

**April, an update almost four months later**

As I said above, it is now April of 2012, four months after I re-started my weight loss journey!

Since January, I have:

lost 20 pounds!
gone from a size 14 to a size 10/12!
had a knee injury :( I was in physical therapy for a month and was just cleared last week to begin high impact cardio again!
I feel a lot happier, but maybe that’s just me.

These two were taken the night of Miss Hendrix, two weekends ago.

Sooooo yeah, I think that’s all this little introduction needed on the update front. But you guys can always shoot me a message if you have any questions! Holla!

Until the next much needed update,

Cheers,
Mauren