The Rest of My Life

  "Success is not final, failure   is not  fatal:  it is the courage  to continue  that counts." This quote is attributed to Winston Churchill and he was certainly right about courage to continue. It took a lot of courage for me to finally address my weight and my financial and physical fitness, and to do it in a public manner. I knew I had to put it out there to help keep me accountable and anyone who actually knows me knew I was extremely overweight, so it really was no secret. It's not like I didn't know how fat I was. It's not like I didn't know my finances were a mess. It's not like I didn't know I was not physically fit. I did know. I knew it for years. Still - to say it out loud was no easy task. For some reason I wasn't able to seriously address any of it until I finally hit the proverbial wall in December 2018. I hit that wall hard and I feel like it was the lowest point of my life. The good news is it's been all uphill since. I've...

"Success is not final, failure   is not  fatal:  it is the courage  to continue  that counts." This quote is attributed to Winston Churchill and he was certainly right about courage to continue. It took a lot of courage for me to finally address my weight and my financial and physical fitness, and to do it in a public manner. I knew I had to put it out there to help keep me accountable and anyone who actually knows me knew I was extremely overweight, so it really was no secret. It's not like I didn't know how fat I was. It's not like I didn't know my finances were a mess. It's not like I didn't know I was not physically fit. I did know. I knew it for years. Still - to say it out loud was no easy task. For some reason I wasn't able to seriously address any of it until I finally hit the proverbial wall in December 2018. I hit that wall hard and I feel like it was the lowest point of my life. The good news is it's been all uphill since. I've s...

  "Push harder than yesterday if  you want a different  tomorrow." Pushing myself. Not an easy task. After all, I can sit here and do nothing all day and no will other than me will know or even care. That's where motivation comes in. I have to motivate myself. That's where goals come in. I have to push myself to achieve them. I have to hold myself accountable on the days I don't accomplish what I wanted to. At the same time, I have to acknowledge my achievement on the days that I do ! I fall down here. I am very good at criticizing myself for all the things I didn't do while ignoring all the things I did do. I'm also very good at finding excuses not to work out !! I'm putting more effort into pushing myself this week, in an effort to get my endurance back to what it was. There really is no excuse Monday through Friday because from 5 pm on my time is my own. I cut myself some slack on weekends but in reality there is no reason I can't workout Saturd...

    "Don't ruin a new day by thinking about yesterday. Let  it go ." Today's quote is definitely words to live by. I've wasted so much time looking back at my past and wishing I had done a few things differently. Who hasn't ? The problem with that is we're wasting our time because you can't change the past. We can only change the day that is in front of us so I'm working on keeping my eyes forward, instead of looking back at what I can't change or what I regret. I've said this before - every day we get a new 24 hours to "get it right", in case yesterday wasn't quite what you hoped it would be ! As long as I'm getting a new 24 hours I'm going to keep working on living the best possible life. A while back I decided it's time to stop counting days. I started Nutrisystem on January 4, 2019 and I remain committed to the program. I reached my goal weight on July 23, 2021 and lost over 150 pounds. After taking a break fro...

  "Today Is A Brand New Day ." I feel like returning to the "one day at a time" concept will help me get back on track but I also know I need to set some goals to help motivate me. I've been slacking when it comes to exercise so the big goal is to get 125 workouts done by March 31st. I'm at 50 so I have 75 to go. This is a completely reachable goal. I really want to get back in the habit of working out before work, so that is a goal as well and it fits with the big goal ! Let's face it - I've gotten super lazy and super comfortable with being lazy .. and that is a recipe for disaster. I feel like the worst of winter is behind us and nicer weather is coming, so it's time to shake off hibernation mode and the other 100 excuses I've used not to exercise. I've been on what can only be considered a bit of a bender. I've continued eating Nutrisystem food but I've added in lots of other stuff that can only be described as "junk...