A brief introduction to our hero

I know what you’re thinking, starting this venture by calling myself a “hero” is probably one of the most conceited things I could possibly do. However, you will quickly learn that I am a fairly sarcastic and humorous individual and also I am a total geek and these are things that I am 100% proud of. No, but for real  I have a Thor tattoo, I collect comic books, know entirely too much about Disney trivia, and have probably spent more money on various collectibles than I have put gas in my car. But none of that really matters at this juncture, I promised you an introduction and so you’ll get one.

My name is Meg, I’m a 24 year old “professional student” according to some of my more colorful friends and family, I also just so happen to be nearly one year into my epic weight loss journey. I call it an” epic weight loss journey” completely seriously due to a few factors. The first of which is that I’ve been overweight pretty much my entire life (I’m sure you’ve heard this song and dance before) and one day I decided to make a change and get on the road to being healthier and happier. As someone who’s always struggled with my weight, this was not the first time I started on an “epic weight loss journey” it was however the first time I actually stuck with it. Here we are, on day 360 and I’m still committed to the journey I started June 9th, 2015.

One of the more interesting things about my journey is that I have congenital hypothyroidism, for those not involved in the medical world basically I was born with only a small piece of my thyroid gland which is a small butterfly shaped gland in your neck responsible for regulating growth and development through metabolism. So being born with only a small piece of that pretty important organ leaves me at a bit of a disadvantage, especially when it comes to regulation of my weight. I’ve been on a synthetic thyroid “Synthroid” pill from infancy and I will always have to be, which is totally fine. Essentially once I hit puberty and my hormones kicked into high gear my metabolism got all wonky and I’ve been overweight ever since.

Last year around the beginning of June I made a decision to start trying to lose weight for the umpteenth time, only this time I was going to do it on my terms. Instead of eating salad all the time and starving myself to shed weight I was going to count calories, weigh-in weekly, get more active, and make my body look the way I felt on the inside- totally awesome. My godmother, Suzanne, is one of the people who has contributed the most to my journey. She is the one who told me about the app MyFitnessPal to track my calories and has been an absolute inspiration from her own journey. On the days I felt bad because I slipped up and ate half a pizza and ended up way over my calorie goal for the day, she was there to keep me on track and send me a quote to help me on my way. She’s also the reason I started running and was able to complete my first 10K run in April, but there will be plenty more on her later.

I guess that’s my basic intro, I think I covered the more important points of when I started, how long it’s been, name, etc. I do feel as though I’m missing something though. Of course! I forgot to explain my blog title, like a goof. As I said earlier, my name is Meg and being a twenty-something I grew up during the Disney Animation Renaissance. One of my absolute favorite movies as a kid was Hercules, partially because I loved that there was a character named after me and partially because it’s a great freaking movie. Anyway, for many years of my childhood I had this poster above my bed featuring Megara from Hercules with the words “Meg to the Max” in some goofy font. That poster was a big inspiration to me as a kid and I’ve kind of related it to what I’m doing now. I’m taking Meg to the Max and working toward the body and lifestyle I’ve always wanted and trying to be the best version of myself. I hope that you’ll stick around and see me through my journey as I become Meg to the Max!

So you have an idea of how far I’ve come, the left photo was a couple years ago around my heaviest and the right is from April when I was running the Star Wars 10K at Disney World.