Tuesday, November 8, 2011

30 Days of Wellness

Well here it is. 30 days with me and the voice in my head. I've been thinking about many things recently past, present and future and they all have one thing in common- ME! :) I've been running into several people from my past recently. People who I have not seen in many years. People who know recognize me even though on the outside I have totally transformed my appearance. Many ask, how did you do it? I as myself, "how do I keep doing it?" So here it is 30 Days of How I Keep Doing It.





Many of my new friends and acquantences have no idea who this is:





Look closely, I'm under there. 6+ years ago, this is what I looked like on the outside. Now, depending on the day of the week or hour of the day, there is someone else standing in front of you. Sure she maybe sneaking in the back door of school 2 minutes before the bell rings with 6 bags, her shirt on backwards and inside out, taking 2 seconds to inhale deeply and exhale slowly. But that person in the photograph above is still a part of me.





Throughout all of this, I tell people, it's not about the weight. (Thanks, Lance.) It's not a number on the scale, or how many calories I burned that day. Bottom line- it's about what I fed my body. I cannot be mentally or physically healthy without making conscious choices.





2 confessions:


1. I am a stress eater. When stress rears its nasty head, you will see me reach for the candy bowl or tiptoe to hide in the kitchen with whatever I can get my mits on.





Stress has reared its ugly head in my life. Like, most of the world, the economy has impacted my family in ways that I can't begin to describe. My husband lost his job in March of 2010- 3 weeks before my son Toby was born. Since then, he has gone back to school fulltime for nursing and works parttime at Menards. So my role in our family has changed. Not only, am I the breadwinner, I teach fulltime (only my fellow teachers truly understand what this is like), I also have had to add other jobs on to my already amazingly hectic whirlwhind of a day. To help supplement our income I tutor and teach cycling at the Y. I needed to keep a gym membership- a gym that has a pool and provides daycare so that I can work with other people on their own road to wellness. As Covey would say- Win-Win. I also feel like a single mom- which many of you reading this are.





2. I started this rapped weight gain in the 4th grade, possibly when my best friend moved away. I spent my teens overweight, college life overweight and the first 5 years of my marriage weighing 250+ pounds. (This will be a future post- has my weight loss affected my marriage?)





With that said. I know what it's like to "be there". To stand on the scale with 100+ pounds to loose and think, "I can't do that." Staring 100+ pounds down is like handing someone a pair of running shoes and saying, "Today you're running a marathon. Ready- Set- Go!" Get real. I broke it down step by step- day by day. So I will spend the next 30 days letting you know how. How I did it and how I keep doing it. Step by step- day by day.

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