It All Starts Here

I first took control of my health and weight almost exactly three years ago. I remember the tipping point well. I was working in the emergency room and had just consumed half of a Meat Lover's Pizza from Pizza Hut after a particularly stressful shift. I drove the hour home and had problems just climbing the stairs from the basement to the first floor of my house. My legs hurt and my breath came in painful, ragged breaths...all after fourteen or so stairs! That night in the shower, I inspected the body that I didn't even know anymore, because I had stopped looking at anything but my face in the mirror months earlier.

So I decided to take the reins. I started an account on Sparkpeople.com, which was highly motivating for me, and instantly started tracking my diet and exercise. When the weather began to warm up, I added hiking to my established routine of calorie counting and Jillian Michaels' 30-Day Shred, and the weight continued to drop. I relished my new defined muscles and strong body and smaller waist - but I was also ashamed of the weight I still was. I looked in the mirror and still labeled myself "fat." Now I look at pictures of myself from that time and regret the negative self-talk I was still engaged in. I could have defined abs and be at my goal weight by now if only I'd recognized that my hard work was paying off! But after months of hard work, I wasn't where I wanted to be, and a lot of this, sadly, had to do with the social outlet of Sparkpeople.

This is by no means a bad review of Spark. It helped me start on my journey and has been a wonderful tool and form of encouragement for so many people, and the site has generated loads of success stories. In the end, though, it was those successes that killed my own motivation. I looked at the members who had achieved whittled waists and toned bodies in just a few months, and garnered tons of on-site support and recognition, while thousands of us that were making slower gains and facing more struggles were almost forced to bask in their glory. Maybe I was almost too dependent on outside support, and maybe I was wrong to need the recognition of others, but in the end I was just tired of witnessing those things go instead to the people who could have, ultimately, achieved the same results on their own.

So this time there will be no Sparkpeople interaction other than using the tracking tools to better gauge my progress. Instead, there will be this blog. And whether or not people step out to support me, I will have a better understanding of what I need from myself to make this possible.

Plan for Monday, December 10th:

• Breakfast: coffee. I normally actually eat something, but today has been rather low on the activity scale so far.
• Lunch: leftover Pork and Hominy Stew with cornbread.
• At work: no treats, drink 2 Nalgenes, stay strong!
• Dinner: Maybe a big salad?? Still undecided.
• Workout tonight: at least P90X abs, maybe a gym run as well depending on how I feel.
• Also: studying - two finals tomorrow but no work!

xoxo
amanda