Somehow the picture kept resurfacing. Finally, I took a good long look at it, and in a moment of resolution, I tacked it to the corkboard that’s near my office door. Instead of hiding it, I would face it. Every day. I felt a change coming on.

If you’re like me, you are one of those women who doesn’t battle with obesity, really. I’m a little taller than average, of “solid” build, as my pediatrician used to say to my mom. She’s just a solid girl. I was never skinny, but I wasn’t fat, either. Two pregnancies left me with a few stretch marks and five to 10 souvenir pounds per pregnancy, depending on when I weighed in, which wasn’t often. Somehow, over the course of 10 years of marriage and a blooming insurance business, my closet became filled with size 14s where sixes and eights had once been. Some women would love to be in 14s. I get that. One thing I learned on my own weight-control journey is that “size doesn’t matter.” How I feel about myself does, though.

All of us are on the same team when it comes to the battle of the bulge—its so easy to wear a stack of hats that towers to the sky and forget about the woman underneath all the roles. When that picture arrived, it was at a time in my life when I couldn’t recall the last time I felt energetic, the last time I didn’t depend on a constant percolating coffee machine to get through the day. I couldn’t get to sleep well. I couldn’t wake up well. I was living life in a bit of a blur. I hated buying clothes, because everything looked better on the rack than it did on me. The problem compounded when what I thought was somewhat chronic carpal-tunnel syndrome turned into a completely numb right arm and nagging pain in my index and middle fingers. I forced myself to take an hour to go see my doctor, wondering if I had some strange neurological disorder or an aneurysm. A few tests later, I was diagnosed with bad posture. My chronic bad posture had led to a loss of curvature in my neck—the natural curve a healthy person carries that balances the head correctly on the shoulders. Years of self-neglect had caused nerve irritation, and at the ripe old age of 29, I felt like I belonged in a retirement home watching the “Golden Girls” and playing shuffleboard.

My prescription was physical therapy. I had no idea what to expect, but I recall looking at that picture on my way out the door, thinking about what a waste of time it was to have to attend physical therapy. I had a very warped view about what constituted wasted time.

I remember asking my physical therapist if he thought that my weight had contributed to my nerve and posture problems. He said carrying around extra weight certainly didn’t help. Extra weight. It was a revelation. I didn’t have extra time or extra money, but I had extra weight. That afternoon, when I returned to my office, I took another long hard look at the picture on my corkboard. That wasn’t me. I vowed in that moment to feel like me again, no matter what.

Then, I did what I do for my clients—I sat down and made a plan. My doctor ran blood tests to rule out thyroid or systemic problems that might have contributed to my lack of energy.We talked about my plan, my options, and how to take control.

It started out small—a commitment to do something every day for my health. One of the easiest excuses known to woman is that you don’t want to do it alone. After trying to hook up with friends to walk or workout, I decided that I wasn’t going to pin my goals on others. Instead, I loaded my iPod with songs that inspire and motivate me. I put an hour every day into my planner—“me time.” In the past, my largest weight-loss road block was guilt: If I wasn’t in my office or at home cleaning or making dinner, or doing something fun with the kids, I experienced extreme and heavy guilt. Like many other successful businesswomen, everything I do gets weighed in terms of priority—spending time out running or at the gym used to seem so wasteful when there were so many other things to be taken care of. I overcame this by scheduling the time, and next to it, writing “guilt free”—over and over and over again. I told my husband what I was doing, and his support kept the guilt from creeping in. I bought Pilates and yoga DVDs, and where the old me would have been embarrassed to perform in the living room in front of my family, the new me—the determined me—didn’t care. One of my great excuses of the past was that if the kids were up and around, I couldn’t workout without them distracting me. I was pleasantly surprised when both the kids woke up early one Sunday morning and joined me on the floor, saying, “I can do that, mommy.”

Soon, I began to see changes. My 14s were a little loose. The scale gave way, little by little. I saw my doctor once a month to check my progress. In four months, I had dropped a little more than 25 pounds and had reached my goal weight. When size 10s got loose, I was ecstatic. I emptied my closet, passing nearly all my clothes on to a friend who had recently had a baby. The first time I bought a size eight, I nearly cried. I’ve experienced a reunion with energy, a renewed outlook about what food is to my body, and a sense of calm that was absent in my life for a long time. I sleep well now, and even though I’ll never be morning person, every day starts easier for me now that this machine known as a body is more in tune.

Looking back at the last six months, I realize putting myself first is, in a way, putting everything else first. By being aware of our health, and taking the time to work on it, we’re showing the people in our lives that we care enough to give them the very best of all we have to offer.