All About Me!

All About Me... 

I can't believe I am really starting my blog!  This has been a goal of mine this year and I am finally doing it!  I figure I will start out with a little bit about my background and what type of things I will be posting on the blog.  

My name is Amanda, I am 29, and I grew up an army brat in the town of Fayetteville, NC.  My dad did 24 years in the military, mostly in the Special Operations so we stayed at Fort Bragg, NC for his entire career.  Crazy right?  A military family that never PCSd.  I was an active teenager, playing competitive volleyball through out high school.  Went on to college at UNC at Wilmington, did some volleyball coaching at a middle school and still working out some.  College wasn't too kind on my waist though.  In true college style I gained the Freshman.. um, well.. 25!  Even though I was still working out my diet was lacking.  I consumed mostly anything that was convenient and fast.

It was the end of my college years that I started to make a real change.  First off, I met my husband and we all know how that makes any girl want to lose weight and look good.  I knew I loved this man very early on!  The second factor that led to my diet change was a health scare.  Three days before I graduated college (2006) I found out I had thyroid cancer.  Scary right?  I was scared but through lots of research I knew that it was easily curable and it was "the cancer you want to have if you're going to have cancer".  Within a month of finding out it was cancer, I was flown to MD Anderson Cancer Center in Texas and had a total thyroidectomy.  Recovery was easy and painless.. in fact I was back to working out 2 weeks later.  I had several radioactive iodine therapies and am happy to say its been 6 years now and I am still cancer free!

My fairy tale wedding :)  

 Surprisingly the cancer didn't scare me.  I felt God had his hands around me at the time and I knew everything was going to be alright.  What bothered me was that everyone told me I was going to have to watch my weight.  That people with thyroid issues gain weight really easily.  I was bound to prove them all wrong.  I came upon The Clean Eating Diet by Tosca Reno and started to follow those guidelines along with working out with people who wouldn't take "I don't feel like it" for an answer.
I had my ups and downs.. I have been all spectrums of the TSH range and my weight has maintained.  When I was crazy hypo I did not let me stop working out or chow down on trash.

I got pregnant in 2009 with my daughter several years after my surgery and was also able to maintain a good pregnancy gain.  Now pregnant again with my son, I am doing even better!

Pregnant with my daughter (38 weeks) on left, with my son (38 weeks) on right

If anything, I want this blog to show you that YOU CAN DO IT!  The biggest challenge we face is ourselves.  I could have a million excuses of why I cant do it.. but I don't!  There are no excuses for me! Thats the deciding factor!

So fun facts about me that I might not have included in this intro:

* I am an army wife, 6 years now! Its challenging at times but I wouldn't have it any other way.  I am so proud of my hubby and what he does.  The sacrifices are worth it.
* I have the American Flag tattooed on my back, yup, Im that proud :)
*  Only food I loathe... corn dogs.. that is just disgusting! blah!
*  My daughter, Anna, is 3 years old and I have a son that should be coming out today! lol
*  We are PCSing to Hawaii this January!  This will be the biggest change of my life!  I have never been more than 4 hours away from my family and I have only missed 2 Thanksgiving/Christmases my whole life!

Deployments are rough but there is nothing like that feeling at homecoming!   Wouldn't trade that feeling for the world

With this blog I hope to be posting lots of clean (and sometimes not so clean) recipes that I love!  I also want to share with you my crazy Army life!