For a few years now, I’ve struggled with my weight. No, I shouldn’t say weight, because it’s not about how much I weigh – it’s about how I feel, how fit I am and my health.

If I’m to start with how I feel, in all honesty it’s not good, and I’m not happy. I admit that I’m probably 35 lbs heavier than my ideal weight, which isn’t stick thin or the image of “a perfect body.” I’ve accepted years ago that I’ll never have society’s idea of a perfect body, and I’m quite okay with that because society’s perspective on women’s bodies is skewed and extremely unhealthy. In fact it makes me extremely angry and I’ve seen a few friends almost die from eating disorders.

While I’ll have moments of woe and weakness, I also have moments of strength and pride. Many women and I have a lot of things going for us aside from our bodies, and we should all pay a little more attention to those things.

But we also all have our moments where we know that things have to change, things have to improve and there can be no more excuses.

I accept that I’ll always have larger legs that are inherited by women on my father’s side of the family – it’s the Eastern European genes. My grandma had them, my aunts all have them, my sisters have them. They’ll never be perfect or thin or slender and if I let it bother me, I’ll always be uncomfortable wearing shorts or bathing suits, but I won’t because I know that’s my body type and there’s nothing I can do about it except keep them strong.

What I won’t accept is the state I’m in at the moment, mostly because I’m a former athlete who used to pride
herself on her muscle tone and killer quads made muscular from volleyball and weight lifting. At 29 that girl’s gone, and I miss her, and while I know I’m meant to have bigger legs, they should be muscular and healthy.

As a volleyball coach and even a sports reporter, I feel that I should have that athletic figure back and the fitness level that came with it. Years of a sedentary lifestyle due to graduate school and a back injury in the summer of 2011 have slowly taken their toll on my fitness level and figure, and a busy sedentary career makes it hard to get that back.

I’m not fit, which angers me the most. I can’t do much cardio without getting winded easily, and I can no

longer do my once-regular weight lifting routine without either hurting myself or burning myself out. The worst part is I couldn’t probably play a competitive game of volleyball at this point without needing a substitution, which used to be out of the question.

That should change. No, it has to change.

If I don’t get a hold on this and continue to go down the path I’ve been going down since 2009, I fear I’ll continue to gain weight and gain the potential for heart problems, cancer and diabetes, all things that run in the family. I also have bad knees due to growing five inches in a year when I was 15, and my joints didn’t grow quickly enough which led to lubrication problems. The heavier I weigh, the harder it is on my already damaged knees.

To put more pressure on myself to finally stick to my goal of being fitter, I’ve decided to commit to the Ernie’s Fitness Challenge publicly, which means writing a column on my progress every week starting Jan. 4, 2013.

I’m going to do the weigh in on Jan. 3 and the weigh out in March, but I won’t weigh myself in between, which will be really hard for me.

I’m doing that for two reasons: 1) it’s not about what the scale says, it’s about how your clothes feel, and 2) I like surprises, like at Safeway when I make a big grocery purchase and give them my Safeway card to see all the money fly off the total. It’s like winning something.

I also won’t publicly say what I weigh next week because it’ll be hard enough to deal with personally; I don’t need it made public (also, never ask a women how much she weighs), but I will say “I lost ______ lbs” in the end.

Every week I’ll write a column to talk about my progress, how I’m feeling, how the dieting (healthy dieting) is going and if my clothes are fitting looser. I’ll talk about the struggles, the bad moods and the accomplishments that come with making your fitness goals.

And if I fail, then I’ll fail publicly and deal with the shame, but I really hope I don’t.

I hope that others can follow my journey in this, others that understand what I’m going through, and maybe see some encouragement in it.

Hundreds of people in town join these challenges, but if we do it together, it’ll be that much easier to stay committed and finish it.

What’s three months, anyway?

So join me in my highs and lows of finding a way back to fitness. Even if you’re not encouraged, I’m sure you’ll be entertained.

Oh boy.