Introducing My First Guest Post Ever! : Meet Shannon

I feel honored to introduce my first guest post ever! 

My blog is relatively new, almost 6 months old, so I didn't even dream of anyone taking much interest in it...not yet anyway. But I was contacted by a fellow blogger earlier this week who wanted to guest post.

As you all know my blog talks about my running, my training for a marathon next year, my hair, my life, and my food. Basically, my overall experiences with trying to stay healthy and injury free. 

So I feel Shannon's experience stays true to that. Plus, she is hilarious! I hope you all enjoy her post! Don't forget to comment and visit her blog!

Oh, and if any of you lovely people want to guest post in the future, don't be shy. Just shoot me an email at: nonataylor@gmail.com. I would love to hear any and all ideas!

My name is Shannon from OhShenanigans.com! I graduated from Syracuse University in 2010 and during my 4 years there, I gained a whopping 80 POUNDS! Yes, you read that correctly. Now that I'm living on my own and have pretty much everything else in order, it's time to attack this weight issue.

Hi, my name is Shenanigans, and I'm addicted to food.

I'm so serious though. This week I really started to look into how I feel after eating certain foods and tried to only eat when I was hungry. Of course I failed miserably, and learned that I only eat when I see a sign about food, or if its noon and it's "supposed to be time to eat even though I just ate at 1030".

Or even worse....when all your friends are going out to eat. My days get worse as they go on. Breakfast is usually easy because I make something quick and head right out the door. Lunch time nears and since I was too tired to get out of bed on time, I didn't have a chance to make something healthy. So my thoughts start spinning about all of my options.

• I could be healthy and get a salad with Tuna or Chicken....but that's boring

• It's Buffalo Chicken Wraps Wednesday! (yes, my job has them every Wednesday. And I buy it, every Wednesday) 
• I could go get Panera Bread, and stop by Target afterwards 
• Eh..you know what. I'll just get McDonald's and get more Monopoly pieces.

Because I end up having a bad lunch, I feel tired and just want to go home and curl up in my Snuggie and watch Law & Order SVU. Most of the time I will drag my fat ass to the gym and do at least 30 minutes of cardio, and on Thursdays I always make it to Zumba if I can. Since January, I've lost almost 20 lbs. To me that's just water weight because I've been at a plateau since the beginning of the summer.

After coming off of my cruise vacation in February, I was shocked by the way I looked.

Taken February 2011

I was set to go to Miami in May so I had some motivation to get fit since I was going to be surrounded by all of my skinny friends. Between those months, I counted almost every calorie that went in my mouth and I didn't eat fast food (ok maybe a few times). 

It was rough but I did it. What happened after Miami? I got comfortable. This morning I weighed in at 204.6. So close to Onderland. This is 3 lbs down from August, so I'm definitely heading in the right direction. Just need to keep it that way.

Only way to do this is to get over my addiction to food.

Taken 10/13/11

Be sure to follow my weight loss journey over at ohshenanigans.com where you can also read about all the hilarious shenanigans I tend to get myself into.