My name is Mollie and I am a newbie. I have only recently found out about DietBet and boy have a I fallen hard. I started my first DietBet on January 4th- Losing Big with Courtney from Biggest Loser. I have always been a heavy girl and never really cared about it until I got much older. I finally started caring when I was almost 30 when (and everyone seems to know this but me) your metabolism slows down. About 8 years ago, my husband and I were on a weightloss program and did really good for almost a year. He lost 120 and I lost 70 and we were feeling good, and on top of the world. But then life happened- in 2008, we lost my grandmother very suddenly and very unexpected in March. My grandparents, my moms parents, were married for 52 years and were extremely close. My grandfather immediately shut down and became very ill. He was hospitalized and did not even make it to my grandmothers funeral. I was so heartbroken for him, because he was simply heartbroken and was ready to give up. This was hard to comprehend too, because he was a retired marine who was always very strong and controlled. He did bounce back for a few months but his health declined shortly after. In July of that year, we received a sudden phone call at 2 am. It was my mom. I was expecting it to be the dreaded call about my grandfather. It was a dreaded phone call but not about my grandfather.......It was about my dad. My dad was a truck driver, had been for 25 years, and had a fatal accident earlier that night before. The sherriff's office had just left her house from telling her. She was so alone, and I was about 2 hours away and incomplete shock. We quickly got dressed and made that drive to go be with her and to check on grandpa. This was a very trying time. Within the rest of that week, we planned, carried out his memorial service, and did a lot of crying. My family and I returned home on Sunday and had a chance to be off on Monday but I need to go to work. I simply needed a day off from the sad. However by the time I got to work that day, mom called me with the other dreaded phone call. My grandfather had passed away that morning. Ugh...that is about the best word I had for that day. We were all so exhausted from the week before but this was not the time to bail on my mom. We loaded up and went down that night and took care arrangements and funeral with my mom and our family.
I think the best thing I can say about that year, is that it was horrible. We all went through a lot of guilt, depression and everything one can expect with a year like that. I personally went through some counseling in about 6 months, felt that I was in a better place. I found out that I was pregnant May of the next year and was due in December, which was a high of highs in the emotion department. However life continued to happen, my job that I had for five years (people there were like an extended family) started financially suffering and bascially closed by September. I was forced to hunt for a job at 6 month pregnant, and I was very pregnant. We survived that crazy two years and life has certainly been great. But fast forward 6 years later and I had almost put all that weight back on. That weight, I worked so hard to take off. Really hard. So hard, I dont know that I have that in me again hard.
Last year, I got motivated in the beginning of the year just like I do every year. I really got ambitious and signed up for a 5K obstacle race in April. I kind of watched what I ate and tried to excercise but mostly had a pity party for the fact that I was not where I wanted to be but could not get my self motivated trying. Then it hit me after spring break, in March, I only had about 4 weeks away to this race. I DON'T RUN, much less anything else physical. But I refused to bow out, so I started doing zumba basically 5 days a week and combo run/walk 3 of those days until the event. I dropped about 10 lbs and was as ready as I could be for someone who has never even been in a 5 K walk much less this. I kept thinking what the heck have I done? I was so nervous because lets face it, I am a big girl. I was very intimidated by the course and by the skinny pretty fit people I was going to see. But, I went and really the only reason I did not drop out is because my 12 yr old daughter was set on doing it too. Despite my insecurities, I did not want to quit because of her. I need to teach her to be better and have better habits than me. No one can teach her to not have the same bad habits as me, other than me.
Well, we went and... I LOVED EVERY BIT OF IT. It was fun. No one made fun of me. In fact, there was all kinds of shapes, sizes, and types of people. There was NO limitations. Everyone helped, motivated, and encouraged everyone. We were sweaty, muddy, chased by zombies, and had accomplished at lot that day. I came home feeling 10 ft tall. The pic attached is of me at the race, I am still not very comfortable posting it but I have to share.
My daughter plays select softball, and we were extremely busy pretty much every week after that until December of last year. I was able to lose about 30 lbs last year. Of course, I wanted more but I have to be happy with that. There is alot of traveling, eating out, late nights and early mornings with this softball thing. I have been stressing to because I know that it is about to get underway and of course the new year has started and I have goals again. So, I discovered this cool social dieting thing called DietBet at the beginning of January through an FB post. I read it and was like this is cool. $30 that I will lose weight, seems like a no brainer. Worse case I lose $30, best case I lose 4% and at least get my money back. Yeah...count me in!!! I am newly motivated in a way that I have never been. This is fun, this is addictive (lol) and I DO NOT WANT TO LOSE MY MONEY. I am doing exercises, I have never done before. My biggest challenge is staying patient. This is only week 3 of my very first challenge, so I am really trying to balance my wants with actual reality. All that to be said, I have found an excitement that I have not had in a long, long time. An excitement that is way more than be a skinny person too. It is about working out, getting healthy and maybe just maybe finding muscle in my arms and legs.
I started searching for creating my own DietBet and stumbled on the fact that you can create a fundraiser DietBet. So here I am with my own DietBet that is a fundraiser for my daughters softball team. This allows us to try to make some money for a very busy tournament season coming up and at the same time encourage a family-friendly and fun way to live better. What a great lesson to share with my children. Sorry to be long winded, and very overly excited. I just feel rejunvenated and want to share. :)
We can only hope to motivate an encourage with our challenge too. Please check it out, dietbet.com/TexasBombers
And...thank you for reading my craziness! :)