Keeping my eye on that prize...

I’ve got my eye on the prize. That prize is a long, active life where I live long enough to meet my great-grandchildren. To get there, I’ve made a commitment to myself to eat healthy, remain active and enjoy the ride along the way.

As someone who has struggled most of her life with my weight, I don’t want it to all be about looking good or fitting into that new pair of jeans. I want it to be about what really matters - a long, comfortable life with lots of joys and memories that are built.

Looking good is important, but feeling good is essential. It took me 48 years to realize this. I’ve been on this journey way too long in life and turns out that I was heading down the wrong path all along. I was more concerned with fitting into those size 10 pants again instead of feeling proud of myself for being able to walk up three flights of stairs without feeling winded.

Now that I am finally looking at life through the right lense, it feels damn good. Every little thing feels like a major accomplishment. I’m down 31 pounds and absolutely love my workouts at the gym 4-5 nights/week. I still have another 34 pounds to get me back to where I was after my WLS, but I’m not in a rush. I feel good about myself and love working out at the gym with my husband. Life is good...it really is.

I am officially back. For good this time. I have been off the grid for a few years now. My only real excuse is that I’ve been caught up in life. My job. My family. In that time, I have definitely regressed a bit and went back to some poor eating habits. Since my weight loss surgery 9 years ago, I had literally put back on 65 pounds. I honestly was focusing on everyone but myself. My husband, my kids, my parents, my pets, my co-workers. Everyone but myself. I was last on my list.

In March of this year, I hit a low point in my life when I realized I was disgusted with my body ONCE AGAIN and I had jumped back up to 235 pounds (my highest weight right before WLS was 271 pounds). I returned from a business trip to South America in March and decided it was time to take my life back. I joined Weight Watchers and have been tracking using the online app pretty obsessively and also attending the weekly meetings. I also started back at the gym and have been going 4-5 days a week. Since starting this new journey to find myself again, I am down 28 pounds and have added some definition to my body.

So, I have been thinking a lot about why I am successful this time in my weight loss journey using Weight Watchers when I had tried it many times in the past unsuccessfully. In past attempts to lose weight (before the WLS), I would lose a few pounds here and there but never anything dramatic or impactful. This time, the combination of Weight Watchers and a commitment to the gym is what I think is the magic recipe.

My husband and I started personal training sessions this week as a way to bump up our game. I’d been feeling a bit complacent lately and doing the same exercises each time at the gym. Our trainer worked our tails off on Thursday night and I’m really feeling it today. I look forward to continuing our workouts and personal training sessions. I hope that this is the jumpstart that I need to kick myself into gear.

My goal is to lose another 30 pounds by October. I know it’s a stretch, but I have 15 weeks to do it and I’m 150% committed! I can do this. I know I can.