Wednesday, January 1, 2014

Welcome to the NEW YEAR!!

A new year means a fresh start!  I am really looking forward to 2014!  2013 was good to me, but I think we can always strive for better, so let's make 2014 a spectacular year!!

For this post, I'm going to bore my regular readers.  But I want to welcome anyone who might have decided to change their lives for the better and stumbled across this blog.

This is what I want to share with those of you that might be starting a journey today - JANUARY 1, 2014.

On January 1, 2010, I was 37 years old.  I had a house, a husband who loved me and a good job.  I was also morbidly obese.  I weighed about 344 pounds.  I had made some half-assed attempts to lose weight in the past, but have never lost any substantial weight.  I also believed in my heart, that it would be impossible for me to lose enough weight for it to make a difference.  I rationalized that I was still in pretty good health - except for my sleep apnea which was controlled with a mask hooked to a machine that I wore every night.

I often say that I wish I knew what stars aligned in 2010, I don't.  But whatever brought upon this miracle, it happened.  I started "working out".  It wasn't much to start with.  I played some fitness games on the Wii.  Both my husband and I started making little tiny changes in our eating.  I don't remember us having a conversation of needing to lose weight or wanting to change our lives.  We just started to make some changes and supported each other in these changes.  

I remember on June 3rd of that year, my birthday, I had lost 30 pounds. I had cut soda from my life and was moving more.  We were walking the dogs 3 miles every night when I got home from work.

One good choice, my friends, leads to another and pretty soon eating right and exercising became a normal and natural part of our lives.  The pounds melted away and in February 2011, I had lost 100 pounds.  In 2012 I hit my goal of 119 pounds, making my weight loss total 225 pounds.  

For anyone who is reading this and wonders if it's possible - I am living breathing proof!  I didn't have a trainer or a cook.  I wasn't on a reality TV show working out 5 hours a day and having a celebrity scream at me.  I didn't have my groceries paid for and wasn't given a $10,000 Walmart gift card. 

Nope.  I worked my ass off. I took it one day at a time.  I cried and screamed and felt sorry for myself many many days.  And yet, here I am.  

Today, I started 2014 with a 8 mile casual run on our treadmill while watching Snakes On a Plane.  My life is radically different then the Jen who woke up on New Year's Day 2010.  I am so much happier and healthier.  

Imagine 4 years from now telling someone, or blogging, about who you were - what you looked like, how you felt on January 1, 2014 and what your life is now, on January 1, 2018.  Can you see that person?  Can you work to become that person?




 

1 comment:

  1. I'm a regular reader but I never seem to get bored of reading your story. I think that's because I find it inspirational.

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