My Story

I’ll spear you my entire life story. I mean it’s a blog, not a book. But I wanted to share where I am coming from. 

You see, I’m going to start a mini-series of sorts, here on my blog about health, wellness, eating right, exercise, and the “church” and how all of those things go together.

But I thought the best place to start was at the beginning with me and my story, or my journey – as those in the weight loss industry – often call it. I started my “weight loss journey” in November of 09. David and I were starting to plan our 10 year anniversary trip, and I decided I wanted to look better for that trip than I did at that current moment. So I decided to join a gym. It’s a gym inside and part of a church. I had a friend who was also a member, so I started going there cause she was going there. It’s always good to exercise with a friend. 

I wasn’t sure exactly what I was going to do once at the gym, I just knew that I needed to be going. You see, I knew all the things I was supposed to be doing to not be fat. And, yes I was fat. I just wasn’t doing them. I started going and just walking around the track, or using the stationary bikes. I was pretty consistent with that, and after just a few weeks I was walking like 2 miles. Good for me, right? For sure! But then I decided I might try some of these group exercise classes. So I did. And I took all different kinds of classes - from Zumba (which I don’t really like) to Pilates (which I love!) to yoga, kick boxing, kettle bells, step classes, strength training. It was good stuff. It was accountability for me – since all I had to do was show up and someone else told me what to do! Plus it was different types of workouts so I was getting a variety! It was good.

Then of course there was the eating part. I knew that eating was a HUGE part of weight loss, and since I’ve had all different types of diets in the past, I honestly wasn’t sure where to start with the eating thing. David who was also doing this with me had done some research and some reading (if you know David at all you know this was actually a LOT of reading and LOTS of research) and he found several studies that showed the most effective way to lose weight was simply  calories in verses calories out. So all I had to do was to cook meals that were low in calories!

When it comes to cooking I’m pretty decent (if I do say so myself), but I needed things to make that came with the calories already listed for me. So while at the grocery store I started picking up some Weight Watcher’s recipe books. They have listed for each recipe all the nutritional information. Perfect! 

And we were off.

Seems simple enough right? 

Oh sure.

Eat right, exercise, loss weight! Done. 

Yeah right!

I did lose weight. And I was exercising. But there’s a whole lot more that needs to happen in a person’s brain to make it stick (but I’ll get to that in another post). 

This was us at my Aunt's wedding a few months before we started the weight loss trip!

It took me about 6-7 months (I was exercising about 1 ½ - 2 hours 5 days a week and eating 1200 calories per day.) to drop 30 pounds. It was cool, and I was excited. 

And us on our 10th Anniversary cruise!

But I’ve learned A LOT since then that I would like to share with you. So come back tomorrow and we’ll talk some more about it! Plus, I’ll have a yummy recipe for you to check out! Pictures and all!