Early July Morning, Cocoa Beach, Florida

Wednesday, January 7, 2009

A Healthier Lifestyle

Something I have been struggling with for the last several years, is my weight. Until I hit the child bearing age, I never really had a problem with my weight. When I was younger, I ate healthy, and was active. I was always heading to the beach, swimming in our backyard, or off to dance lessons. In college, I was a dance major, eventually wanting to use my dance background to assist others through therapy. Dancing about eight hours each day and being involved with dance teams, I kept myself in good physical condition.

Once I got married and started having children, my lifestyle changed. All of the sudden, I was a stay at home mom. I had every intention of putting in that video and working out, or talking walks with my little one. I would start, then for one reason or another, I'd quit. Soon, I had another child (17 months and three days later), and it made it even harder to find time to work out. Within six years from having our first child, we had four little ones. Boy, was I ever busy! You would have thought I would be skinny as a rail, but nope, I was not. I was not extremely heavy, but my size three was going forever.

Dance, karate, baseball, soccer, and eventually home schooling kept our household very busy. I did take tap lessons for several years, and enjoyed that greatly; but the weight never came off. Once the kids got to a point where I could leave them for a short time, I looked into several weight loss programs. There are a lot of good programs, but finding the one that fits your lifestyle and your budget is hard to do. I finally found the right one. It was a bit pricey, but I told myself that if I did not do something soon, that I may be setting myself up for medical issues, and that would be really pricey. I started Jan 2005 and by April, I had lost 30 lbs! I was so happy. The end of May we went on a seven day cruise, and I didn't even game one pound! I saw some of my old college friends, and they couldn't believe how good I looked. I not only looked good, but I felt wonderful!

Fast forward to August 2007--we moved to Louisiana. I tried to continue with maintenance with my program, but they would not continue since I had started at another location in another state. I won't get into details about that, because it was pretty involved, but as the story goes... because I had no accountability, I fell back into my old habits, and gained the weight back. I had been in a loose size six, and now I am back into my tens. I beat myself up constantly over it, but now I think I am ready to move on and start anew...

I really don't have many bad habits. I only drink water, we don't do fast food (unless we are traveling, and sometimes we try to bring our own sandwitch stuff), and we don't have chips, cookies, etc. in the house. I also walk briskly for about 1 to 1 1/2 hours each day. My downfall is...pasta. Yes, I am a pastaholic, so, I will be cutting this out of my menu. Today, I am heading to the grocery store. I have made my menus and made my list, and I am off to the store for the hunt of healthified food.

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