Living Healthy, Living Well...

I'm starting a new Friday feature that I'm going to call...

Adventures in Living Healthy with CityMomma/CountryMomma!

I hope to continue it and be consistent with my postings, but as usual...we'll all have to just wait and see! ha ha! I might even decide to write about my healthy living other days of the week but I'll definitely feature it on Friday.

What exactly am I going to write about you ask? Well, I'm going to write about my weight loss journey, my successes and failures, my ventures into new types of exercise, new foods or products that I try and old foods that I make healthier but still enjoy. I'll give you a little background...

I've been every weight, skinny, fat, and in between. I have every size clothing, if not in my closet then, packed away somewhere in hopes that I'll fit into it again. I've done every diet, Jenny Craig, Weight Watchers, Deal-A-Meal (yes, really). It's the classic story, I'd lose weight, keep it off for a while and then eventually, it would creep back on, gaining more each time. I had great success with Jenny Craig about ten years ago, I was down to about a size six and I'm five foot eight! I looked good and felt good, well, at least physically, but for various reasons, I gained it all back. I've been through a lot in the past year and many of those things I can't control but I've realized I CAN control how healthy I am. I'm a year away from turning forty and right now, I'm fat. I know some people don't like that word but frankly, that's what I am, I know it, you'd know it if you saw more than just my face, and in my opinion, "fat" is not a bad word, if you're fat, you're fat and that's just the way it is.

If you read this blog on a regular basis, you know that I work at the YMCA. It's a great place to work, especially if you want to be a healthy person. My gym membership is paid for as part of a benefit for working there, I get discounts on programs and free childcare...I can't beat it! Right before Christmas I attended some trial meetings of a "Living Healthy, Living Well" program that's been running at the Y. I was hooked and decided that it was going to change my life. It's a simple program really, kind of similar to Weight Watchers, in that you're eating healthy, and making changes that you can continue for the rest of your life. It's kind of cliche' to say it but, it's not a "diet" it's a lifestyle. The woman who runs the group, my "weight loss lady" as I call her, is named Phyllis. She's a registered nurse and a licensed nutritionist, who herself, lost over 100 pounds and has kept it off for years. She also has a cute southern accent which makes me want to call her Miss Phyllis so that's how I'll be referring to her as I blog.

Our group meets once a week to talk about strategies for weight loss and healthy living. Her goal is for us to lose one pound a week. Losing much more than that at a time, is not healthy or sustainable, according to Miss Phyllis. She has a phrase that cracks me up, "If you bite it, you write it, if you drink it, you ink it." We keep a food journal in which we write down everything we eat and drink and the calories and fiber it contains. It's truly been eye-opening. I have a lot of weight to lose so my daily calorie total is fairly high. Of course, that doesn't mean I can eat all my calories in cheese curls but it does mean that I can pretty much eat whatever I want, within reason of course.

I've started exercising consistently again too. I've been into exercise for a few years now. I like to say, "I'm pretty fit for a fat girl" because I can do a lot more than the average girl my size, I even "ran" 5K twice last week and climbed 40 flights of stairs on two other occasions. I do all that exercise though and I've never managed to lose much weight because I used all my working out as an excuse to eat and drink whatever I wanted to or I'd find excuses to stop going to the gym. Now that I'm consistent and combining it with healthy eating, I'm actually losing. It's so exciting and I'm definitely addicted to the endorphins the working out gives me, it didn't take long to get back into it, that's for sure. I try to get to the gym at least 5 days a week and if I can do 6, that's even better. I have some girlfriends that I work out with (they're already skinny) and I'm trying to get The Husband back there too...he needs it as much as I do.

So, thus far, I've lost 12.8 pounds. I sort of started before Christmas and lost 5 pounds right off the bat. I gained one back over the holidays and started "officially" in the beginning of January for my now grand total of 12.8 pounds! I have a lot more to go and NO, I'm not going to tell you what I weigh or post a "before" shot but I do hope to share some insight into my new and healthy lifestyle with you. Wish me luck...