Growing in God

FOUR YEARS! Four years ago today, I went in for my Gastric Sleeve Weight Loss Surgery. It was the day I FINALLY made the choice to gain control of my health and my life. And boy, little did I know the crazy, wild, and difficult journey I would be getting into. But yet, each moment has been so worth it and I am so proud of each step of my journey. Anyone who says having a weight loss surgery is "taking the easy way out" has absolutely no idea what they are talking about and is insane. Because having this surgery is far from easy. All the surgery does is simply give you a tool to help you lose the weight. But if you don't use the tool the way it is suppose to be used, it isn't going to work. So, I have had to put in A LOT of work for my tool to work for me. I have made crazy changes in my eating habits and nutrition. I eat much smaller portion sizes, don't snack near as often and when I do I have snack it is much healthier than it use to be, and the quality of my ...

Ok, I am sure you are all taking one look at the title of this post and thinking to yourselves, "since when is Tori in to basketball?" or "what is this even about?". I promise I am not trying to click bait you, and I also am definitely not in to basketball. But really, I could come up with no better title for this post than that. Because the month of March, for me, has simply been madness. And it has gone by so fast and I am just like, where the heck did this last month even go? Let me get into explaining. I came back from Costa Rica, and March started right away, and I hit the ground running with getting myself back on track and back into routine, and also with more wedding stuff. My fiance and I made our wedding registries and we even went and got things figured out for our wedding bands. I also was able to go and pick up my wedding dress from the store, and I have purchased all of my accessories, such as a headband I am going to wear, my shoes, and a bra. And w...

I just got home from the trip of a lifetime! I just spent the last week in Costa Rica, along with 16 other people from my Church. And we were shown Costa Rica, by our pastor who was born and raised there! The best way for me to describe Costa Rica, is as a place filled with so much joy, happiness, wonder, and beauty. God's handiwork is just everywhere throughout the country. Through people who are so kind and joyful, to the amazing beauty of everything you see, everywhere you go. And I totally understand now why Pastor Tito raves about it so much! For me, this trip, was seriously a HUGE thing for me. And was simply, a dream come true! I seriously always dreamed of taking a big vacation and trip like this one. But, not only was cost a factor, but my weight was also a huge factor. Before I lost weight, I either needed a bigger seat, or would have to possibly buy more than one seat on the plane. And also my weight made it that I knew I never would be able to enjoy or even parti...

2018 is almost over! How freaking crazy is that?! I swear it was just yesterday that I wrote my post about 2018 just beginning!! And as 2018 wraps up and 2019 begins, it is that time where I just reflect on how this last year went for me and how well I accomplished my goals for the year. First off, I wanted to just make this another really good and positive and year. And 2018, definitely, was a very good and positive year. And I gotta say has been and even better and more positive year than even 2017 was. The first thing I wanted to do to accomplish that was dive deeper with the Lord and build my relationship with Him more. I definitely think I did that, maybe not quite as much as I initially wanted, but I still did that. And I think I keep getting better and better with that as time goes on. As far as my weight loss journey, my only goals for 2018 was to keep doing what I was doing and to get the skin on my stomach removed. And I was able to have the skin on my stomach removed, whic...

Today is September 22, 2018. Today I ran my first ever 5K!! I first signed up for this 5K back in May when I really started getting fully back into a good workout routine by going to the gym. I was thinking I had probably gone a little crazy at the time, but it was something I really wanted to do just to see if I could do it, and also just to prove to myself just how far I had come. I also was interested to see just how well it is I would do in a 5K race situation. And, boy, little did I know just how exhilarating it would be! Last night, I went to bed at like 10:30 in hopes of falling asleep at a decent time and getting a good nights sleep since I was going to have to wake up early and I wanted to be well rested! Well, I couldn't turn my dang brain off and it ended up being well after midnight before I finally got relaxed enough to fall asleep! So I woke up at like 6:30 this morning to get myself ready for the race. I was tired, anxious, and nervous! I got dressed, made myself a...

I seriously cannot believe that it has been 3 years since I had my Gastric Sleeve Weight Loss Surgery. On September 14, 2015 I made the single most greatest decision of my entire life to better my health by going in for my surgery. And at that time, I had no idea just how far I would come in this crazy journey and just how insane and wild this journey was going to be. Because, it has been difficult and wild and insane, but also wonderful and empowering and filled with lots of learning and growing moments. And I feel I have definitely come the furthest in this last year alone. In just this last year, I have lost an addition 20 pounds to the already crazy amount of weight loss I had. I feel like it has been because I have been working on myself A LOT mentally, emotionally, and even spiritually. At this time last year, I was very happy and proud of the progress I had made and of how far I had come. But, on the inside, I was hurting. I was still hurting a lot over the loss of my Mom and ...

A few weeks ago, I had a day that I had only ever dreamed of. I had a makeover and a photo shoot. And I really had been dreaming of having a day like that my entire life. Honestly, I did not enjoy having my senior pictures done and, while I was proud of my progress at my 1 year post op pictures, I still looked at them and couldn't help but think that I still had more weight to lose and I had all my sagging skin. I always hated having my picture taken and hated looking at pictures of myself. I never saw myself as pretty. And when people would tell me I was pretty, I would think they were lying to me just to be nice and they were just saying it because they didn't want to make me feel bad. Even when I went to Banquet my junior and senior year of high school, I didn't feel pretty or think I was pretty because I looked at all my class mates who were skinny and gorgeous. And I dreaded taking my picture with them because I thought I would be such an eyesore standing next to them ...