Believing is the hardest part

In November 2012, about three days before Thanksgiving, I was fired from the only real job I ever had, one with paid vacations and paid time off, and holiday pay. I knew I was going to be fired because they made me train my replacement the weekend before. She showed up two hours late and obviously hungover the last Sunday morning I worked there. That day there was a Code Grey and all the patients and health staff and I lined up in the hallways by the X-RAY department. It was a nothing job anyways, cleaning endless hallways and countless bathrooms, carting out tons of trash to the dumpster, vacuuming and running the floor machine. The minute I got home from my shifts I always drank at least three or four beers. About a month later my friend took a picture of me drinking a bottle of beer atop her husbands four-wheeler parked in their garage. I was wearing the same black pants I had worn at the janitors job I had, they were the only pair I had that fit me. I studied the photo, was this really me? It was a depressing Christmas that year. No money for gifts and I was in the worst shape of my life. My business had suffered, I hadn't bothered to look for clients because I was working for the hospital 40 hours a week for the previous two years. I had some residential cleaning customers, but they were few and far between. The hardest part of being overweight is believing you can lose the weight. Reading others weight loss stories really inspired me during this difficult time. Just like when I had quit smoking, I read lots of stuff from other successful quitters. So I started. I hit the treadmill. It was hard just to walk 2.5 miles an hour but I did the best I could. In May 2013 I bought a Fitbit Zip to help track my steps, because walking seemed to be a great low impact way to lose weight that really worked for so many people I had read about during my months of contemplation. Walking 10000 steps per day seemed so impossible to me at first, then after that summer it was much easier. The following summer, I had days I walked over 20000 steps, one hot July day I walked almost eight miles. Now in the winter of 2016 I'M up a few pounds from a festive holiday season, but I know my love for walking is real, and if I'm heavier than I want to be all I have to do is start walking. It really is that simple.
December 2012 weight was 187 lbs.
December 2015 weight was 165 lbs.
My height is 5'6'.