So you know those pivotal moments in your life where in an instant, everything changes?

Well….I had one of those moments a little over two years ago and my whole life has changed from that point on. God sparked a passion in me, that at the time, I could have never dreamed about the paths and transformations it would take me on.

So let me take you back a little over two years because to understand me now, you need to see where this process started.

Picture it…NC 2017 (huge Golden Girl fan here) I am a typical mom of an 11 year old and a 5 year old. We live an average life, two busy working parents, I have been struggling with my weight since having my son in 2011. I had been running for two years. When I started I couldn’t even run to the end of my street, even though I could see the stop sign. At this point though I was up to about 20 miles/week. I was trying to eat good, lots of chicken, rice, broccoli, protein shakes, 3 cups of coffee a day and lots of water. I was working so hard and I was stuck at 50 lbs overweight. I was tired all the time, rarely getting though the day without a nap. My back hurt, my knees hurt, I battled with bouts of depression, headaches, bad PMS, I had oily skin and breakouts all the time, and almost daily stomach issues. As if all this wasn’t bad enough, I always had trouble falling asleep and staying asleep though the night. I had lived with these issues for so long that I was so used to this as normal. I really didn’t even notice all these were wrong until they changed.

So now the exciting part…..THE MOMENT EVERYTHING CHANGED!!! My uncle had been telling me about a documentary he had seen on Netflix that had changed his life he said. He begged me to watch it ASAP. One night my husband fell asleep early so me and my daughter curled up on the couch together and hit play. The documentary was called “What the Health” and life changing it was!! I went to bed that night, not having any idea how or where to start, but I knew things were going to be different from then on. So the next day comes and I had some chicken laid out to cook for dinner and just looking at it made me feel sick…there was no way I could eat it or give it to my family to eat. There were no words that I could use to possibly explain this phenomenon to my husband (who used to tease me about how much chicken we ate ) so I begged him to watch the show. After lots of begging and maybe some marital bribery 😉 he did it!! His life changed after that show too but I knew I was going to have to be the one to take the lead on this one if it was going to happen.

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This is an example post, originally published as part of Blogging University. Enroll in one of our ten programs, and start your blog right.

You’re going to publish a post today. Don’t worry about how your blog looks. Don’t worry if you haven’t given it a name yet, or you’re feeling overwhelmed. Just click the “New Post” button, and tell us why you’re here.

Why do this?

• Because it gives new readers context. What are you about? Why should they read your blog?
• Because it will help you focus you own ideas about your blog and what you’d like to do with it.

The post can be short or long, a personal intro to your life or a bloggy mission statement, a manifesto for the future or a simple outline of your the types of things you hope to publish.

To help you get started, here are a few questions:

• Why are you blogging publicly, rather than keeping a personal journal?
• What topics do you think you’ll write about?
• Who would you love to connect with via your blog?
• If you blog successfully throughout the next year, what would you hope to have accomplished?

You’re not locked into any of this; one of the wonderful things about blogs is how they constantly evolve as we learn, grow, and interact with one another — but it’s good to know where and why you started, and articulating your goals may just give you a few other post ideas.

Can’t think how to get started? Just write the first thing that pops into your head. Anne Lamott, author of a book on writing we love, says that you need to give yourself permission to write a “crappy first draft”. Anne makes a great point — just start writing, and worry about editing it later.

When you’re ready to publish, give your post three to five tags that describe your blog’s focus — writing, photography, fiction, parenting, food, cars, movies, sports, whatever. These tags will help others who care about your topics find you in the Reader. Make sure one of the tags is “zerotohero,” so other new bloggers can find you, too.