Let me start by saying, when I first decided to make a lifestyle change, it was July of this year, which was about 3 months after I turned 40. I always "said" I would make a change but something would happen that would make me say "oh I'll start tomorrow" and those tommorows kept coming and coming until for some reason I decided enough was enough.
I had always heard that make one small change at a time and let it grow from there. Well that was my big mistake as I wasn't following this. I would have all of these gradieouse dreams and plans. So I ended up going big and bold and overdoing it on everything and honestly giving up to try again later. It wasn't until July of this year to decide to honestly give the small step/change at a time and then go onto to the next step.
I figured being at 221 lbs, on both cholestrol and blood-pressure medicine and the fact that I smoked, I needed to pick one and just start for there. So I decided the best one to start with was the smoking. And I will be honest, I "quit" many times throughout the month of July, but it never actually stuck until 10:45 pm on July 22 (yes I am very aware and PROUD of this time). I pretty much started walking or cleaning/organizing or studying to get my mind off of things. And this time it stuck.
The next step was to begin eating better, which I began working on at a week and a half of not smoking (because my diet really was horrible, I would eat nothing all day then go overboard in the afternoon/evening). That was actually harder for me than the smoking to be honest. At least for the first week or so.
At around the same time, there was a 90 day challenge at my gym, so I began that challenge and working with a trainer each Saturday for about two weeks as well as working on walking/jogging (way more walking than jogging right now) because I promised to complete a half marathon in November (mind you I said complete no run the whole way). The trainer changed this past week to a 3 day a week weight loss challenge through my gym that is great because it is helping me with exercise as well as nutrition.
All of this is going on while I am working on completing my MBA in Accounting and my MS in Organizational Leadership and working full-time. While it seems like a lot at once (at least while I am typing this out ha ha ha), I can now see that I gave myself weekly or week and a half breaks before adding to the next step. So now I am able to handle each of the items I want to do. So who ever came up with starting small and building from there was RIGHT (at least for me :D)
In a little over a month, here are the improvements I can see:
209.6 lbs (down 11.4 lbs since beginning of July)
Can finish 4 miles in an hour (It used by to 3 miles in an hour)
OFF cholestrol medicine (WOOHOO)
Weaning off BP meds (Heck yeah!!!)
I have including one of my fuzzy pictures from my initial weigh in for Diet Bet so it will be interesting to see how the changes have continued at the end of the bet :)