Journey to a Healthier Me

I know, I know.....it's been FOREVER since I have posted.  Well, summer hit and chaos began.  The kids were super busy with friends for Mackenzie and fishing for Cody.  Yes, we have a fisherman among the ranks.  Then in July, we had a wedding in Washington DC to attend. After the wedding, the kids stayed out there visiting their grandparents.  They came back the day before school started. 

Now, school is in full swing.  Cody began football practice this week and is anxiously awaiting news about whether he is on JV or Varsity this year.  Mackenzie is in choir this year and liking it.  In fact, she is going to audition for show choir next week.  She has been practicing every night with friends and has high hopes.

As for Neal, he is still working as an electrician and is keeping busy with that.

Now to me.....well I have been going through my own transformation in the past couple of months.  I am calling it a journey to a healthier me.  See, I weighed in about the beginning of June and was at my highest weight of 209.  I had been attempting to lose weight since March with marginal success.  So, I thought I will lose weight, that is what I will do.  Well, the scale isn't always our friend and doesn't always make me happy.  Now, I am on a different journey.  A journey of health.

My diabetes has always been a roller coaster for me.  In and out of the hospital and just a lot of difficulty.  On came the journey.

I began with counting calories with an accountability check-in on Monday with my sister.  Results showed slowly.  Then plateau city.  Not a fun place to visit, I wouldn't recommend it.  I then decided to add fitness to the routine.  I joined a TEAM Weight Loss class at the gym and went 2-3 times a week.  I loved the class.  It was a circuit class with little intimidation.  But, it was at 6 PM at night.  This makes it difficult to maintain family needs so I began to dwindle in class attendance.

Now comes the cool part, I was invited to a work out group here at work.  They work out M-Th at 530 AM. WHAT??? You may say.  Well, I am an early riser anyways and found myself showing up for work by 6 daily.  We began as a small and mighty group of 4.  We do Leslie Sansomme walking tapes and Kettle bell workout tapes.  Now we are up to 6.  Recently we added the Pound Fit workout Tape.  This is a fun tape with the use of weighted drum sticks.  I also have a Wii at home (Which I haven't used yet :-(   Well, here comes the journey part

Through this journey, I have lost a total of 14 pounds.  YAY!  But with every journey there is a journey downward.  This week is it for me.  Last week at weigh in time I was up .8 lbs.  How could that be?  Well while I had worked out 3x last week, I had not logged any of my calories.  This week I am on day 4 of working out.  I stepped on the scale with confidence only do deflate my balloon with another gain of 1 lb.  This devastated me.  I thought for sure I was going to show a loss.  But, as we all know, there are many different factors that can affect our weight.

Here's the upside of the journey.  Every day, I am feeling more energetic.  When I began the journey, I was in a size 20W and yesterday I comfortably wore a size 16.  These are both wins for me

So, won't you join me on the path?  No judging, no discouraging, just a positive place to reflect on the roller coaster.  Thanks for listening and keep it up.  Together is a better place to be!