About
If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
Hi. My name is Sheril. And, I want to thank you for visiting my blog—Your Future Figure: Weight Loss Solutions and Resources for Today’s Woman.
Your Future Figure exists for you, if like me, you are a woman who has experienced a lifelong struggle with weight loss and weight management. More specifically, I am talking to women who have, on average, been about 10-50 pounds overweight most of their adult life, because that was my experience. But, I hope that anyone and everyone that has ever struggled with being overweight can benefit from this site. Your Future Figure was created as a Weight Loss and Weight Management Resource for you, including:
• Safe and healthy weight loss/management solutions,
• Tips to help lose weight and keep it off
• And, most important, education
My passion in creating and maintaining Your Future Figure is to bring you truthful, real life help and education in a down-to earth, “girlfriend” kind of way. I do firmly believe that education is the beginning of change. If we don’t know the truth about something, how can we change it? To make sure that I bring you accurate and current information, I am constantly reading and studying. In addition, I regularly consult with a Fitness, Nutrition, and Weight Management expert who also happens to be my husband, Charles.
All of this is brought to you from my view point, a woman who has lived through weight management struggles for over 20 years, since the age of 16 and, thankfully, has found a way out. A way that I am more than happy to share with you and many other women, so that you too can break the cycle of being overweight, and instead, become fit, healthy, and well (it’s not about being skinny) to improve your quality of life both for you and those you love. I want to help you to find your future figure. Well here’s a little more about who I am.
Who I am today
Today, I am the wife of one fabulous man, 10 years and counting, and stay-
at-home Mom to two sweet little girls. I am enjoying homeschooling my oldest daughter (this is our first year) and seeing her love of knowledge and learning come together. Although I stay at home with my girls, I do keep quite busy. Not only am I the queen of my family domain (new language for household engineer), but I stay very involved with my local church, partner with my husband in a small business, volunteer in my community and on and on—you know how it is ladies. Today, I am ecstatic to say that living at a healthy body weight and being healthy, well, and fit helps me to do all that I do from day to day. However, life hasn’t always been this good for me. As I mentioned above, I have struggled with my body weight for over 20 years. I’ll share some of that history here. See if you can relate.
Who I used to be
Recently, I found a picture of myself from when I was 14-years old. Oh my goodness! I don’t even remember this person. In this picture I am tall and thin and I think I even have a little muscular definition in my arms. I guess pictures don’t lie, but I’ll tell you, my struggle with weight loss and weight maintenance has been so long and so sorted that I truly did not remember ever being in control of my body. Shortly after this picture was taken, I blew up to 165 pounds. That body weight was not easy to deal with as a highschooler. But, I got through it. I think my love of music (I’m an opera singer) helped this young girl not to focus too much on my very woman-sized body.
That being said, I later got involved in pageant competitions. And, believe
it or not, I had a great competition record—in 5 years I had been crowned Queen 4 times. But here is a fact that most people don’t know. I weighed about 160 pounds when I was crowned as “Miss Vineland”, my first Miss America qualifying local competition. Yes, I was crowned in a beauty pageant at 160 pounds. I couldn’t believe it either. In a world famous for petite women and the occasional controversy over an extremely thin woman, a panel of judges crowned a 160 pound young lady. Please allow me a moment to digress here. Ladies, especially young ladies, there are places where people will recognize you for your brains, talent, personality, and inner beauty over your physical beauty. It CAN happen. I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that I won that pageant based on my talent, intelligence, and overall personality, clearly above my bathing-suit body; and I am thankful to those judges for looking at all of me and not just one part of me. PLEASE don’t ever feel that you have to reduce yourself to only your body. There is so much more to a truly beautiful woman, and the people that are worth having around in your life will know that too. Thank you for allowing me to digress. As they say, back to business.
After I was crowned “Miss Vineland” I did lose weight to compete for “Miss 
New Jersey”—20 pounds to be exact, down to quite a slimming 140. Unfortunately, I confess to you that I lost that weight using all of the worst methods that I ever could have chosen, starvation and bulimia among them. NOT GOOD. So, unfortunately, this was a very unhealthy slimmer weight. Let’s fast forward to my wedding day, about 6 years after my last pageant. My body absolutely rebelled against me for the weight loss choices that I made. I regained weight, passed my former 160’ish pounds and went straight up to a new high of 175. OUCH!! This is a classic example of what your body will do to you when you starve it.
Throughout my first 5 years of marriage, I yo-yo’d between 175 and 185
pounds, while leading a very busy life. You know how hard it is ladies to take care of yourself while living such a busy life. I was an Office Executive, working an average of 60 hours a week and traveling. I loved my job and those that I worked for, but it was none-the-less, quite busy and at times extremely stressful. During this time I had a series of health struggles:
- All manner of muscle and joint pain (debilitating at times)
- Chronic tiredness and fatigue
- Chronic back spasms
- And many other unexplained illnesses
Then comes baby, or should I say babies.
In 2 ½ years I gave birth to two beautiful little girls, Olivia and Mikayla. My pregnancies were very healthy, thank God. My weight was even under control during the pregnancies. I gained 27 pounds with my first child and 25 with my second. Great job, right? I thought so too. But, then again, 18 months after the birth of my second child, I was weighing in at an all-time high of 195 pounds. SCREECH!!! Put on the brakes. This was a serious wake-
up call for me. Even though I was doing all the right things like eating healthily and working out on a regular basis, I could not lose weight. Of course, having a major shift in lifestyle didn’t help matters any. I went from a very busy professional to a Mom who stays at home with the kids. I thought to myself, “What is wrong with me? Why is nothing working to lose weight?” I even went to a specialty medical practice to find out why I could no longer lose weight, but rather just kept creeping up in weight.
The problem wasn’t with what I was doing at the time. The problem was with what I did so many years ago with the crazy weight Yo-Yo. I ruined my metabolism. I destroyed my body’s ability to properly maintain a healthy weight.
How My Past has Influenced My Current Passion for Healthy Weight
As you can see from reading my story, I am the original lady yo-yo when it comes to weight loss and weight gain. Unfortunately, I yo-yo’d up more than I did down. Through my lifelong struggle with weight loss, weight maintenance, dieting, and eating disorders, I have gained a wealth of knowledge that has been instrumental in making me a healthier person today than I was in my early 20s. I would have to say that the greatest truth that I have learned during my quest for healthy weight is this—Everyone is created differently. Not everyone is meant to be super thin or skinny. We must all find our healthy weight based on our own body and our own lifestyle (seek the help of a professional if necessary). For instance, as you can see, I was pretty thin at 140 pounds. That’s my body. If someone said that I had to be 120 pounds, then that would not have been right for my body. Know your body, work with it, and find your future figure; a healthy weight that you can maintain.
In my quest to educate you on the issues of being overweight and to bring you solutions, tips, and suggestions, it is my pledge to you that every article and link placed on this site is first researched and reviewed by both Charles and myself. It is important to us, and we assume to you too, that we maintain the utmost integrity in what we provide to you. I am here to bring you the facts and the plain truth—no fast-talk, no promises of quick weight loss only to gain it all back, nor any other unfounded promises or claims. I’m simply a woman who has been there and back when it comes to weight challenges. That’s all.
Back to who I am today. I did eventually lose 30+ pounds in a saf
e and healthy way, without the help of specialty doctors. Not only that, I am maintaining my healthy weight. Yup, I’m keeping it off.
If you can relate to my story and would like to know how I was able to lose weight and maintain that healthy weight, then you can simply click here to learn more. You can also click on the Nutrition Tab above to get more details.
Enjoy the site and please contact me with your questions and ideas, and of course, post a comment. It’s all about Your Future Figure!
-Sheril
