In the beginning...

I know some of you are saying "it's about time" that I finally started my weight loss blog.  I will be the first to admit that I am not a wonderful writer, but I will try my best. 

My weight loss journey started back in March of 2011.  All of my life I have been over weight.  As a child my parents tried things to help me lose the weight, but nothing stuck with me.  I think I got to a point where I would tell myself it's time to lose all of this extra weight, but it was always put on the back burner until now.  Sometimes we all need motivation and it's not always easy to find that motivation.  For me the biggest motivation was the death of my Father.  In December 2010 my Dad had to have a valve replacement, have an aneurysm fixed in his aorta, and a procedure to correct the A- fibrillation (an abnormal heart rhythm).  We were told that the surgery would only take 4-6 hours.  After 6 hours we were told that the procedure went well and they were trying to get him off the bypass.  A couple of hours went by before they told us that when they tried to take him off bypass his heart would beat, but it was not strong enough to maintain his blood pressure.  Every time they tried to take him off the machine things just kept getting worse.  After he was in surgery for over 10 hours the doctors told us that he was having pulmonary hypertension, which is something that normally only happens in children, and they were doing everything they could to fix the problem.  At midnight the surgeon came in and told us that they were going to put him on a fresh bypass machine over night and there was one more thing that they were going to try in order to stop the pulmonary hypertension.   But the "hail Mary pass" that came 9 or 10 hours later did not work.  At around 12:30pm, after Dad was in surgery for almost 30 hours, the next day they came in and told us that there was nothing that they could do.  I remember my Mom asking how long it would be after they took him off bypass that he would pass and the surgeon said that it would be minutes.  In my mind and the minds of my family we thought that we would not be able to be with him when he died.  But the love that we had for him and the love that he had for us made him try hard to stay alive long enough for us to be with him one last time.  We were all shocked when they came in the waiting room two hours later to ask us if we were sure we wanted to see him and we all jumped up and followed the nurse to the SICU.  When we came to his side he was very swollen, tubes in his mouth and side, and more monitors attached to more tubes and wires then I could count.  But I didn't care I wanted to be there for him and I would never trade those 30 minutes for anything.  They did everything they could but told us there was nothing more they could do.  At 3:27pm he was gone.  That moment plays in my mind more than I like but it's part of the memories good or bad.  I tried to cut the story down as much as I could but that is a large part of my motivation to get healthy and lose weight. My Dad was always active when he was younger and in his early 40's but when the PSTD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder) set in his life changed and so did his health.  He put on a lot of weight and even though he was able to lose some of it, it was not enough. 

At the end of February 2011 I finished my MBA degree and thought to myself what will I do with all of my extra time now that school is finished.  I told my Mom many times that I wanted to get healthy and see what I could do to lose the weight, but I didn't know where to start.  I knew I had to start eating better and start exercising, but I had no clue what to do.  Then came my "hail Mary pass" in the form of my sister.  She had started exercising and eating healthier since she had her last baby.  At that time she had lost over 80 pounds and she looked great!! So one weekend she came up to see me to talk to me about an eating plan called Sugar Busters, a wonderful meal replacement shake called Shakeology, and what I needed to do for exercise.  She also brought me a recumbent bike that my parents bought for my Dad that my Mom said that I could have if I promised to use it and not let it collect dust :-)  After a couple of tears talking about why we both wanted to get healthy, we got down to business.  My sister is very passionate about things that she loves and I am one of them for sure!  I felt very excited about the journey ahead of me and I knew that I would have to take it day by day.  One thing that she did was tell me that sometimes when you are trying to lose weight it is important to have someone that you are made accountable to as to what you are doing for exercise, eating, and how much weight you are losing.  Once a week I email her and my Mom to tell them how much I lost for the week and my total weight loss.  No matter if I lost or not I still tell them to keep up the accountability and also to get encouragement.  I couldn't do what I have done without them.  Yes, I had to do the work, but they made it easier :-) 

I always tell people that if they need help I will do anything I can do to help you lose weight. No matter if you need to lose 10 pounds or 1000 pounds!  My first month I lost a total of 21 pounds, 2nd month 16 pounds, 3rd month 19 pounds, 4th month 10 pounds, and yesterday at 5 months I lost 14 pounds.  So if you add all of that up I have lost 80 pounds in 5 months!!  I know that I will not always lose weight like I have in my first couple of months but if I watch how many calories I'm taking in everyday and change up my exercising I can do anything I set my mind to :-) 

When I started exercising I did at least 30 minutes on the bike 5 days a week and worked my way up to an hour in a month.  I also like to do strength training and take walks with the dog.  It's not a chore to me it's something that I have to do no matter if I feel like it or not.  I know that my first posting is missing a lot of things I want to share but hey there's no time limit and I will try to write on here a couple of times a week to add what I am going through with my weight lose journey no matter if it's good or bad.  All of this is new to me so please be patient with me :-)