Just take the 1st Step

Breathe, Breathe… I can’t believe I actually decided to take a step towards trying to live a better life style. Now I must admit this week will not be my official start date, although I signed up for work a challenge. At my company there is a challenge to live a healthier lifestyle and we have 6 months to hit our targets we have set for ourselves, people can win a $1000. I am in no way trying to win the $1000 because I did not make leaps and bound commitments for the next 6 months. We had 4 categories which were nutrition/eating well, manage stress, exercise/fitness, and endurance athlete. I selected 3 categories which were nutrition/eating well, manage stress, and exercise/fitness. Here is what I wrote I wanted to do over the next 6 months.
My goal is to just be active and begin the process to get into shape. I will play my Kinect doing the Zumba exercise at least 3 times per week for a minimum of 30 minutes. This will also mean that I will incorporate better eating habits, meaning portion control and having water in my diet, starting out with 33 ounces of water and working to 66 by the end of the 6 months. I will strive to lose 20 pounds with these minor changes. With these targets it will help reduce my stress because it will allow me to think of myself so that in the end I can be better for others.
We will have 4 checks and the last one is in March so two months before my birthday. I am saying this will not be my official start date because I have plans that will start this off all wrong. I want to start new next week with this; this challenge is to start of little. Many of my peers have signed up and they made their own goals. My best friend knows I signed up, shoot I sent her the email that says she should sign up too. She doesn’t know what my goals are but I told her the categories I did. I am sitting here thinking what is going to make this different, you say this all the time and nothing changes. Your post the other day was about talk is cheap, this again is cheap talk. I am really hoping and what I need to be doing is praying that this is not yet again cheap talk.
Ok Y’all wish me luck and if you pray, pray that I lift myself up and support myself like I do in other aspects in my life. I can do this and it is ok for the journey to be slow and long!!

I am attaching my profile pic I loaded for the work challenge; I don’t have a measuring tape at work so I don’t have my measurements but we will be able to see if there is any difference over the next 6 months. Plus here is to more blog post!

They say Talk is Cheap (written 10/2/12)

So…. I decided to get on the scale on Monday just to see how terrible the damage is that I have done with not eating right or any exercise. I am proud I did not turn into an emotional ball when I got on and then back off the scale. Well you may be wondering well heffa what is the number you saw. The number was 293.2. I went to look at 6/17th and saw my weight then was 288.8 so I have gained 5lbs truly, so I told myself not to bad right. The more the day went on I kept reminding myself girl that s only 6.8lbs away from 300. NO I have not done any more exercise besides those days I went walking with my best friend in the gym at work. I must say it was really nice to spend just a little time with her. Who knew friendships were so crucial. I miss my FB ladies and actually being on MFP although I haven’t had the courage go back just yet out of pure shame!! Then yesterday I made a post on my regular FB and it was totally about a man that drives me crazy and had a conversation with a friend from high school about it and somehow it turned into working out and losing weight. Weird it was needed but it was snuck up on me and I felt a little bit refreshed when we finished talking. The first step is just making small changes like just working out for 30 minutes every day. I mean do things that are fun so it isn’t a workout like for me it’s Zumba and just dancing. I stood in line for hours to get a Kinect and I need to play it, I really like it. I know I know you are saying if you like it so much why are you not playing, that is the million dollar question; there is the excuse of being tired and school right? Well here is the kicker I check my FB every morning and one of the first post I see clearly as I open my eyes is this: If you really want it, you will work for it and when you do you will have it! Talk is cheap, stick to what you say you’re going to do and do it for once! After a while excuses get old…my opinion! J Stay strong! So it was posted by a woman that runs a boot camp from her home and I went one time with my best friend and almost died. I felt a stick in my heart when I read that this morning because I felt she was talking to me and only me. Talk is cheap I keep saying I want to be able to shop in the smaller stores, I keep saying I want people to look at me and see a good looking woman, etc. Granted I am not fit for any boot camp and for sure not ready to go to one. Like I said try explaining that to your friends when all they say is that you are making excuses, it’s not excuses but I have limitations at this point. What struck a chord with me is that yes I will not be running any marathons, running 5Ks, or doing a boot camp class. I can though stop the cheap talk and walk, dance with my dance central game, Zumba I have the game, attempt to do a sit up, or cut back on the portions. I don’t have to go all crazy lady and throw all my food out of the pantry and stop eating bread, pasta, or sugar cold turkey. I can say it is ok that I am fat and that it is ok that it may take me 6 months to lose like 30lbs or even 3 months to lose 10lbs. Then the day just gets better, this afternoon I log onto FB and for some reason I see a post from my cousin saying FB stop changing how we few pictures, so that prompted me to go to my photos to see what she was talking about. I didn’t see anything different but decided to look through the photos I was tagged in. I found a high school picture (I was “fat” then too well according to high school standards because this girl was not a 2 or a 6) and I was sitting in a chair and my legs were actually crossed. What?!! I can’t remember the last time I had my legs crossed like knee over knee type stuff. Then that had me think about this past weekend shopping and the struggle have putting on socks and shoes because my belly and breast all in the way. Ugh
It all starts with a step and the important part is that I keep trying! I am going to keep trying, I am not ready to completely give up on myself, I have proven what was said on FB this morning about getting my associates and now I am working on my bachelors, so I can do things like walk the walk. Now let’s do this for me like getting my degree.