Happy Health-a-versary to me!

Yep, it's been two years today since I had a fateful consultation with my doc during which she leveled with me:

"Either lose twenty-five pounds or stay on the road to pre-diabetes. It's up to you," she said.

I'll be honest, at the time, I wanted to tell her to go f&*k herself. Even as she sat there going over my elevated fasting blood sugar with me, she had a tummy roll peeking over her waistband too. Gaining weight was just part of getting older, right? I mean, I'd struggled with my weight my whole life and I was losing the battle. I was thirty-eight then and I had no illusions about forty being the new thirty. I was past my prime and that was that.

After the anger subsided, I sighed and leveled with her. "It's so overwhelming. The weight gain has been steady since I hit thirty-six and I don't feel like I overindulge all that much."

We went over my pattern of lessening activity--especially since I became a full time writer--and my overeating triggers: stress, celebrations, anger, boredom. All right, I found a lot of reasons to self-medicate with comfort food. Here's me in October 2011:

Okay, okay, it's hard to focus on my big butt in this picture, but it's one of the few pics of me at 202.5 lbs. At 5'8" cresting 200 lbs put me firmly in the category of obese and I hated photos of myself.

By incorporating simple activities such as walking and dancing into my daily routines and strictly monitoring calories consumed vs. calories burned by October 2012 I had lost 35 lbs.

 

I liked the way I looked and I loved the way I felt. Getting healthy and strong became addictive. I've lost a total of 52 lbs and I recently started a cardio-sculpting regime to build my lean muscle mass.

Two years has passed since I started this journey. I hardly recognize my reflection and I have to say at forty I'm in the best shape of my life. Took the pic below just this morning to celebrate my healh-a-versary, something I plan to do every year from now on.

Though my life is busier than ever, I've learned to take time for myself and make my health and fitness a priority. The challenge now? Maintenance. ARGH! But I have faith in myself. I can do this.

I know lots of folks taking the same journey later in life and to all of them I say keep fighting and never give up! We deserve to feel happy and healthy.

Have your own weight loss tips, tricks, successes or foibles to share? I'd love to hear them :)

Cheers,
Cindy