My Fitness Journey

“I don’t sweat, I sparkle” is a popular phrase going around the fitness blogosphere right now. It sounds so ladylike, so genteel, so pretty, so appealing and so NOT me. When I workout, which I’m doing much more of lately, I am drenched when I’m through and there is nothing ladylike, genteel, appealing or pretty about it. No, the phrase that best describes my brand of perspiring is, “sweating like a pig”. 

When I was young I loved to dance. I never had lessons but I liked to hang out with the older girls who were on the dance team at my small town high school. I memorized their routines and sometimes "choreographed" my own at home. Once I reached high school age I joined that dance team. Dancing and youth kept my body slender and firm. After graduation and my soon to follow wedding, Hubby and I started eating out alot because I truly did not know how to cook. Basically I had no exercise at all. Oh, Hubby fiddled with his Soloflex (yes and we still have one), but I wasn't interested in that. In the first 3 years we were married I put on about 25 lbs without even noticing. When I became pregnant with my son, I was like Mrs. Pac-Man (another 80's reference for those keeping track). I ate everything in front of me. I gained nearly 55lbs, but once I delivered I dropped 40lbs of it pretty quickly. For those mathletes out there that puts me about 40lbs above my wedding-day weight.

Onto my 2nd pregnancy. With my daughter I added about 50lbs by her delivery date and lost about 30 of it. That's 60lbs in 7 years. Over the next 18 years I yo-yo'd my way through all sorts of diets. Deal a Meal, juicing, vegetarian, low carb, no carb and yes, I even tried the infamous cabbage soup diet. Some I combined with a little exercise, some not. You know the story...stayed with it for a while, fell off the wagon and gained all the weight I had lost plus bonus pounds. My highest weight was 100lbs more than when I married Hubby. 

January 2012, John and I entered yet another "biggest loser" contest with some family and friends. I decided this time I wasn't going to let myself do anything "fadish". I found Sparkpeople and used a lot of their tools to help me decide how many calories I needed in a day and found several food blogs that listed the nutrition information like Skinny Taste. I also found that a portion size did NOT fill an entire dinner plate, but was instead about the size of my palm. And that when I simply ate less and had the power to say "yes" or "no" to brownies, cupcakes and chips only indulging now and then ONLY in small, satisfying portions, that the weight started melting off. It amazed me that I was good with 3 bites of a piece of cake or just 5 potato chips. I also found that six months later, when the contest was over and we had our final weigh-in, I was crowned the winner! Unbelievable. And honestly...not THAT hard. 

So contest over, but during it I found I was really starting to like feeling lighter and eating better. I still had some more weight to lose and so I decided to retool my thinking. Now that our little Bee has flown from the comb we had extra space and so...her former room is now a home gym and I even moved the treadmill into the living room, not caring about aesthetics. It's pretty cramped in there, but it's sure hard to lounge on the sofa and watch tv with it standing there not more than 10 feet from me. 

And so..that's where I am right, Labor Day 2012. Watching what I eat, trying to "clean" it up even more, and exercising. Let's see what I can get done by Christmas 2012, shall we?