Five months ago I looked in the mirror and wondered how the heck a 'fat' version of my mom got in there! I was a size 22 and now I'm a 12 thanks to a whole lot of discipline and a whole lot of determination.

It's funny, when I look in the mirror now I can't stop smiling and wondering where the heck 'I' was for the last 20 years! I haven't weighed in the 160's since I got pregnant with my youngest son 21 years ago... at my highest weight I was a morbidly obese 235 pounds. (God bless all my friends and family who still said, "You look great!"... but pictures say otherwise!)

My oldest son's marriage celebration inspired me to drop a few pounds but not nearly enough and I regained all but 18 pounds of it in the five and a half years since their wedding. When I seriously decided to jumpstart my metabolism on October 28th, 2011, I was 217 pounds - still officially obese - and to add to the challenge I literally only had one leg to stand on - I had lost my entire right leg, including my hip and pelvis to bone cancer in 1988.
Being overweight was tough on my ego but even tougher on the joints in my one remaining leg.

It's appropriate that I am one of the co-authors of 'Choosing to Smile' because that is what I do EVERY day as a cancer survivor but also what I DID as a fat person as well. Now I don't care who tries to convince me when they say, "I'm fat and happy!" because I know it's not entirely true. Having 'been there' I know that nothing compares to the feeling you get of LIKING how you LOOK in the mirrror - of LIKING how you look in photos - of LIKING who you are for succeeding at such a difficult challenge as losing unwanted pounds!