Out of the Closet

Thanks to some urging from the gang at b5media, I've decided to come out of the closet. I'm Tammy Powley, and if you are at all into jewelry and beading,then you may know me already from the Internet. I write for a number of web sites about various topics, but jewelry has been my main niche over the years. You can see a complete listing of my URLs at my web site - www.tammypowley.com - along with a full bio about my work as a freelance writer. I also work part-time at a public library as a reference librarian. It' s not my dream job, often more like a nightmare, but it's a nice steady pay check that helps out between writing gigs.

I decided to start blogging about losing weight and getting fit for purely motivational reasons. If I have to publically talk about my experience on a regular basis, then hopefully, this will keep me focused on my goal. I picked the name "fatand40" because that's how I feel and I don't think I'm necessarily alone. Admittedly, I'm actually 42, but I figured I can't keep renaming the blog every time I have a birthday.

Here's a picture of me at about age 20. Believe it or not, I actually thought I needed to lose a little weight! Um, yeah, pathetic how we view our bodies, isn't it? I was probably about 105 here and I'm 5'4" tall.

I have no illusions of getting down to this weight again, but I find this photograph sobering. My lifestyle was totally different back then. I was going to college and I worked a few part-time jobs, mainly waitressing, though I did spend about a year working as a dancer at Disney, not exactly the glam life of a dancer I had expected and the pay sucked. With watiressing it was money in my pocket when I left, and I got to eat for free. I also was very into dance, taking about 10 hours of week of ballet and jazz classes. So, to say that my lifestyle was active, well, that would be accurate.

Today, I spend 3 days a week working at the library, usually sitting in front of a computer. The rest of the time, about 4 days a week, I work from home writing, again, sitting at the computer. I've usually been semi-active when it comes to exercise but not real good on sticking to any one schedule. Since January I have been walking, and so far (cross fingers) it looks like this might work for me as far as sticking to something.

So, that's me. I'm stepping out of my big fat closet. The jeans are still folded up in the corner, waiting for me. But, I'm thinking about them.