I have recently embarked on a journey. A friend suggested that I blog about this journey in order to help others who are on, or will take this same journey. I hope that I am able to encourage you along the way of your journey.

Were to begin......I guess it goes back many many years. I have been overweight for more years than I care to admit. Mostly because I only claim to be 29 years old, and telling how long I have been overweight might dispute my age of 29. Anyway....I would say that by 5th grade for sure I was becoming overweight. I guess it would depend on your definition of overweight, but I was certainly not skinny. By the time I was 18, I was what doctors would consider overweight, but not morbidly obese by any means. At that time I got pregnant with my first child. After giving birth, my thyroid stopped working and made losing the weight I gained during pregnancy extremely difficult. Time went by, gain a few pounds a year and by age 21 got pregnant with my second child. Again, taking the weight after did not happen. Over the years I took medications that added to the weight gain, as did diet and inactivity. I do take responsibility for the choices I made that lead me to be so overweight now.

OK, so more recently, I decided to make some changes. I decided I was going to work on eating better and exercising. My goal is to make myself healthier. I needed to start practicing what I preach. In my job at Kaiser Permenente, I have been encouraging staff to take care of their own health and hadn't been doing it myself. So I started slowly with the choices in food I was going to eat. Lucky for me, my husband was having the same thoughts, so we started working on this together. In the first 3 weeks, I had lost about 7 pounds. We then decided to get a gym membership at Planet Fitness. I have been working out now 4 or 5 days a week for at least 60 minutes a day for the last two weeks. All total in 6 weeks, I have lost 15 pounds. It hasn't been easy by any means, but I am taking it one day at a time. I hit a point where it seemed I had hit a plateau, but I kept at it and have now gotten past that. One of the biggest pieces of advice I could give right now to someone getting ready to take this journey is to drink tons and tons of water. It really does make a difference.

I guess that now you have been brought up to date with where I am at. My hope is to share with you along my journey. I thought for years I wouldn't be able to lose even 15 pounds and I have shown myself I can do that, so I know I can get down to where I need to be. I want to encourage you to make the changes in your life to help you become healthier too.

Until next time.........Heather