Introductions

Where to begin? My name is Connie, I am 29 (YIKES!), and I am on a journey to find health and happiness. For the past 9 months I have been focused on losing weight. I am about 45 lbs down. I wish I could say it was more, but as I am typing this up I realize 45 lbs is a lot of weight and 9 months doesn't seem to be a terribly long time to take to lose that weight. I am not on a diet. I am learning to live a healthy lifestyle. I started the year out with Weight Watchers. I stayed with them for the first 2 months but I just couldn't afford it so I went on to counting calories. I joined MyFitnessPal and tracked calories and activity there. I really like MFP. I have several friends and family on the site and the more people that are around to support me the better I seem to do. One thing that has helped me lose the weight so far is working out on a regular basis. I attempted to complete the c25k program. Unfortunately, because of an issue I have with my heels, I was not able to move on past week 5 or 6. I was able to work up to running for 8 minutes. I remember week 1 was something like run for 30 seconds or a minute, something around there. I couldn't do it. I took my time and worked my way up to being able to run for 8 mins. I wanted to cry, I was so happy. Once I get a good amount of weight off, I am hoping to get back into the program. I have also started doing Zumba. I love it! One of my friends had casually mentioned that her church did Zumba and I suggested we try it. Not expecting to like it at all. I thought for sure I'd walk out of there laughing at myself for even trying it. But was I wrong?! I have been doing it twice a week for a few months solid and I can't get enough. I have also done 2 Zumba-thons. 3 hours of zumba! I was so nervous for the first one. At that point I had only been doing Zumba for maybe a month, and had no idea if I could actually do it for 3 hours. When I completed the whole 3 hours I was on cloud 9! I couldn't have been anymore proud of myself. The past month I have lost motivation and was struggling with some depression. I had gained a few pounds and was worried I was going to stay on that path and end up where I started. So, while driving to work a week ago I decided I needed to do something about it, that day. I decided to go back to Weight Watchers. So I have been back on the WW program for a  week. My first weigh-in is tonight. I of course have been weighing myself at home so I know where I am at but I will update on my weekly weight loss after my official weigh-in. This week has been a complete turn around. I am re-motivated and feeling much much more positive. So that about sums it up.

This past week has been a really good week. No matter how well I do during the week with healthy eating and exercise I have always struggled on the weekends. I am guilty of laying around all day vegging out while watching tv. After starting WW last week I told myself I was not going to let that happen over the past weekend, and I didn't. I got up and started laundry on Saturday. I made a healthy breakfast and decided that I had to take advantage of the beautiful weather we were having. So I invited my friend Leslie to go on a hike. Then I thought about Lisa, who I had just had a conversation about hiking with. That made me think about who else I should invite. Being at this weight, and having such low self esteem I have really pushed people away from me, which is something I have been working on. So I decided to invite all of my friends. I sent out a mass text asking who was in for a hike. I didn't expect much since it was so last minute. I was so excited when I heard back from a few saying they were in! So that afternoon we met up at the Sugarcreek Metro Park. It was absolutely beautiful out! We headed out on the 3.1 mile trail. I had so much fun! I have such awesome friends. We talked about a million things while we were out there, but they all talked about how proud they are of me and how they want to keep supporting me anyway possible. When I got home that night I knew I was on the right track.

Katie and Molly on our hike

I am off to my meeting!