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Accomplishments

Published: June 3, 2013

Realizing I was going to hit my 50th birthday just 4 months from that dark, embarassing day in March (at least I can talk about it now), I knew I had to snap to it.  2 days later I was at my first (in a long time) Weight Watchers meeting, and a week later, in the swimming pool!

I used to be quite an athelete, and getting back into it was NOT easy.  I had started karate up again with my ex husband and now, close friend, George, a few months before.  He had observed "I've never seen you like this" after one of my first lessons where my uniform barely fit and my belt ends were sticking up like a bow tie instead of hanging down.  He knew me when I was in my prime and had mentioned if I worked at the whole picture - diet & exercise - I'd slim down.

It took breaking furniture to push me over the top...now, I used to swim - it had been about 7 years - and I would only do the breast stroke.  Freestyle absolutely floored me, wore me out and made me feel like I was just going to die.  When I got back in the pool in March, the breast stroke made me feel this way, but it was amazing that within a couple of weeks, I could do breast stroke without stopping, but could only get halfway across the 25 yard length of freestyle.  A workshop I took at American Swim Academy polished this up, and I began swimming longer.  I have even learned the Butterfly which I had never learned as a kid, and did 150 yards of it just today at my workshop!

I log my yardage at the usms.org site's Fitness Log (FLOG) and look at that - I swam over 13 miles in May.  THIRTEEN MILES!  That's like from here to San Jose...

The weight is coming off - I'm pedalling my bike to Curves now, plus to my Weight Watchers meetings and Karate, and sticking to a very healthy eating program.  It's interesting that once you start eating healthy and stick to it, you start craving the stuff that's good for you.  At first, I was dreaming of eating all of the bad stuff - literally. Funny thing was that it was satisfying to just dream of it.

I'm not saying I'll never eat a sausage egg mcmuffin again, but at 11 weight watchers points, that is an entire hour of me swimming vigorously.  At this writing, I am closing in on 20 pounds DELETED.  I don't say lost as we want to find things we lost, or picked up things we dropped.  I have a way to go but I am feeling so much better, and friends and acquaintances are asking "how did you do it?"

"A new fangled thing known as Diet & Exercise..."

But it's not just "a diet."  This is a permanent lifestyle change.  Healthy choices and activity rule, and my body is 4 sizes smaller (my karate belt now hangs down) and I am feeling stronger every day!