I kind of fell of the map. I was blogging daily and then suddenly stopped. What happened you ask?
I lost 24lbs.
I initially started blogging to document my journey as I tried to get healthier and tried to take my family on the journey with me. I thought that if I could write about it and feel I was accountable to my readers that it would be easier to lose the weight and remain committed. But after weeks of blogging I was no further along in my weight loss and if you look back at my post you’ll notice I avoided the issue all together, Thank goodness that my kids offer up enough material that no one seemed to notice.
I started seeing a trainer on August 24th and as of today November 1 I have managed to lose 24lbs. I have never been able to lose so much weight so quickly and the best part is that I have never felt better. I’m not hungry, I’m not grumpy and my cravings are almost non existent…almost. I have complete eliminated refined sugar from my diet which is challenging especially f you refer back to my post: Why Work is making me Fat. In order to get around all the cake eating at work I now don’t sit at events and instead stand very close to the door. I stay for the presentation and necessary speeches but as soon as the cake starts being cut I make my exit. 

I weight train twice a week with my trainer, do cardio classes three times a week and have recently taken up hot yoga on Saturday mornings. (That experience is a blog all to itself. Stay tuned) It is amazing how far I have come physically in such a short time. I can keep up during the cardio classes and have moved up to some of the more challenging options in order to keep my heart rate up. I can feel muscle definition in my arms and sometimes when I pass a mirror I don’t even recognize the person on the other side.  Then this last Friday I checked my blood pressure and it turn out my heart rate has been reduced by 18 beats per minute.

But enough about the weight loss, something completely unexpected has happened, my kids are showing an interest in exercising. The boys have always been active in sports but now they want to do push ups and burpees. They like to grab my arms and feel my muscles. My Baby girl has even put on her shorts and joined me doing squats. MrLibertyDee is eating much better and has set up a gym in the garage and is using it.

I have spent years trying to get my family to eat better; I have spent endless hours telling the boys how important exercise is. I have spent the last 11 years taking care of the kids, the household and working full time but in all that time I was actually using these things as an excuse to not eat well myself ( “I have to eat on the go” ) I was making excuses to not go to the gym “ I cant’s just leave the kids” “I have laundry to do” “I need to spend sometime with my husband” “I’m too tired from work” “ I haven’t spent time with the dog” .

Then on August 24^th I left the house to go meet my trainer. The kids lined up at the door like I was going off to war to say their goodbyes, MrLibertyDee made a face as I went out the door, but I left. I put it all behind me and I left. When I got back I was exhausted. I had not been physically challenged like that ever and I felt great. The next couple of visits to my trainer were pretty much the same but I kept going. Then one day, I left for the gym and everyone just said: “see you later mom” My excuses have stopped. There have been times I have to be at the gym at 6:00pm and I’m exhausted on the train and I stat thinking” maybe I’ll just go straight home” but then I force myself to go anyway and guess what I feel more energized by the time I get home. I caught a cold and again I thought maybe I shouldn’t work out but I pushed through and once at the gym I felt fine.

I have stopped telling everyone what they should eat. I have stopped telling them about the importance of exercise. I stopped worrying about them in that way and instead changed myself. Guess what’s happened?  I had been raising the kids in a “do as I say not as I do manner” without any success but now the kids see what I’m doing, see the results and want to do the same.

And so although I have lost 24 lbs, lost 2 dress sizes, and lost my excuses what I have gained is so much greater than what I have lost.