Fitness Friday

I am planning on using Fridays as my day to keep myself accountable for my fitness and health goals. For my first entry I want to give you a little background on my struggles with my weight.

Since I hit puberty I have always had issues with my weight. Looking back now I would kill to be the weight I was back in high school when I thought I was the fattest person on the planet. I have never been big into exercise even though I ran track all 4 years of high school. What saved me during my late teens and early 20s was the fact that my friends and I would go out dancing almost every Friday and Saturday night. After being on the floor for 4 hours or more I worked up quite a sweat and managed to burn enough calories that I maintained a pretty decent weight (about 15 lbs over the “ideal” for my height). I am also very lucky that I am pretty tall at 5’`11” so I can carry a little extra weight.

Then I met my DH and things changed. Suddenly I was not going out to dance as much but of course I did not change my eating habits. However, things did not get really bad until I started my last job in the summer of 2003. It was very stressful and I am a major stress eater. In the first year I worked there I managed to eat my way to a 40 lbs weight gain.

I was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes (probably brought on by this huge weight gain) in June 2007. I was immediately placed on Metformin and managed to lose 30 lbs without having to try. Then I got pregnant with Clark and even though I managed to only gain 20 lbs during my pregnancy my body changed and the Metformin did not work the same anymore.

This year I finally decided that something needed to change. After a few false starts and stops I have managed to work out 5 days a week almost every week for 3 months. I started out with 15 minutes and am now working at 20. I think next week I will go to 25 minutes. I am trying to remember that slow and steady win the race. The weight did not go on overnight so it will not go away overnight either. I have always been an all or nothing person but I have learned that something is better than nothing. For me this is more about health than looks. I mean I would not mind wearing a size that is a single digit but that is not my main goal. I want to be healthy for me, my husband and my son. I want to live a long life so I can hold my grandbabies one day. It should be an interesting journey. Until next time ....