Hello everyone! My name is Stephanie and I’m a 34 year-old nurse from California. I work nights at a local hospital and I spend my days with my 14-year-old kiddo and our two little kittens. I decided to join FS because over the past few years my busy work and school schedules (and the general craziness of life) have led to me neglecting my own health a bit. Before I graduated from nursing school, I was working two jobs with crazy hours, not sleeping enough, not exercising enough, slamming back energy drinks like they’re tic tacs, and eating entirely too much takeout food. (The irony of being a nurse and stressing the importance of health and self care to my patients when my own is a mess is not lost in me. 😆.) When I stepped in the scale recently, I realized that at 254 pounds I am the heaviest I have ever been. Given my family history of diabetes, hyperlipidemia, heart disease, and hypertension, I need to be careful with carrying too much weight around and not exercising and eating right as I would be at increased risk for heart attack or stroke which would majorly impact my ability to be there for my son as he grows up. After a few month hiatus from fat secret, I’m restarting my fitness journey on January 1st 2024 at 250lbs. Ideally, I would like to get down to about 150 pounds since that would be a relatively healthy weight for my height. In order to get there, I plan to utilize food journaling, mindfulness, increasing exercise, and working on maintaining a regular sleep schedule. When this whole experience is over, I hope to have lost about 100 pounds and I hope to have gained more energy, endurance, strength, and the capacity for a long and healthy life to watch my son grow up and start a family of his own.