The “Healthy” Side of My Blog

I discovered late last night that WordPress will not allow me to have two blogs set up on one domain. Okay, technically, there is a way to do it, but it looked waaaaaay more complicated than I wanted to attempt. So, after a few months of pondering the idea of creating a new blog for the “other” side of my life (yes, believe it or not, I do something besides take pictures of my kids playing hockey!!), I have decided to just dump all my worldly musings into one place and make this my “official” blog for all aspects of my life. The nice thing is that I can categorize posts and those who are interested in only one topic can do a quick search for said topic. I will eventually need to redesign my blog, since it’s now about something besides just photography, but that will have to wait until I have the time to be more creative.

So what’s this “other side” that I’m talking about? It’s the “healthy” part of my life, aka, my walking/fitness/weight loss journey. I’ve become determined to improve my health and lifestyle, and in doing so, I’ve become a dedicated fitness walker (yes, it’s a real phrase, I didn’t make it up). I find I enjoy talking about that as well. I did just that for a while on my Weight Watchers blog, but they limit me in both words and, more importantly, pictures. (Blasphemy!) So, I have decided to move my Weight Watchers health and fitness blog over to my real blog (here!), and thus prove I have more than a one-track mind. (Two tracks seems to be the max, though…)

To give you some background on this whole “health and fitness” thing, let me start by saying that I used to be pretty heavy.

On the Mediterranean Sea in Italy May 2000

In 1999 and 2000, I was over 200 pounds and wore a size 22. I have struggled with weight all my life, like a lot of people, but that was the heaviest I’d ever been.

At Mackinac Island June 2000

I eventually came to realize I needed to something, so I joined Weight Watchers and attended meetings every week. I lost 50 pounds, and then…I got pregnant!

And baby makes three! July 2001

Almost two years after having the first baby, I knew once again that I needed to lose weight. Unfortunately, meetings just were not in the cards for my busy life at that time.

Baby Weight Christmas 2003

However, by that time, WW had come up with an online version, and in January 2004, I became an online subscriber. I successfully got back to my pre-pregnancy weight and even a little lower. Then I got pregnant again. (Such poorly timed babies, ha ha!)

And baby makes four! July 2005

After that baby, I went back to WW online, sometimes wholeheartedly, sometimes not. I was never too far from the original weight I was when I first lost the 50 pounds (between 150-155 lbs). In the meantime, I became a hockey mom (eventually x2!), got a job that required a 40-mile commute (one way!), and decided to chair a school auction (three years in a row!). I was able to maintain my weight, which was okay, but I always knew I wanted to lose that last 10 or 15 pounds.

I woke up one day last November and decided that it was time to recommit to my health. I had just finished out the last duties of chairing my sons’ school auction (my third and final year), and at the same time, I was also in the midst of managing two hockey teams. These three tasks had literally consumed my life for months, and when I woke up that day, I felt exhausted and fat and completely unhealthy. I had been stress eating for weeks, and my clothes were uncomfortably tight. That Monday happened to be just three days after I saw a friend of mine on national TV (the Dr. Oz show), where they were celebrating the 125 pounds she’d lost by diet and exercise. I decided on that morning (November 21st) that if she could turn around her health without doing anything more than eating right and exercising, I could, too, and hopefully lose the last 10 or 15 pounds that I had always wanted to lose, but life had always gotten in the way.

So that day, I committed myself to walking. I started out walking 20 minutes per day, but I quickly discovered that, on Weight Watchers, if I walked 20 minutes, it earned me one activity point, but if I just added 5 more minutes, I earned TWO activity points. Ha ha, talk about a no-brainer! I was determined to do it every day, but I was also determined not to spend money to do it. So, no treadmill for me, no gym membership…just me and my feet, ha ha! I did decide back in January to spend money on running shoes, after the blisters on my feet became almost unbearable. Wow, what a difference good shoes make! Especially for this flat-footed girl, it was money well spent.

That was exactly 18 weeks ago, and in that time, I have walked every single day except for one day (the day before my 5k, which I decided needed to be a true day of rest).   I started out at a fairly comfortable pace, but as I went along, I found myself wanting to do more, so I began to pick up the pace. Pretty soon, I was walking quite fast. Most days I walked up and down my road, but on the days when I was at work, I walked in the mall attached to my building. This helped, because it meant I wasn’t walking outside everyday. :p

Walking Gear January 2012

I will say that by starting this program in November (in Michigan, mind you!), I became a pretty “tough” walker–snow, cold, wind, rain–I’ve walked in it all. I have cold weather gear and rainy weather gear, and I am not ashamed to look goofy when I walk. 😉

Back in January, after I’d completed about 8 weeks in a row of walking without fail (and lost about 12 pounds), I was talking to some of the friends in my wine club, all of whom were runners (including the one mentioned above who lost 125 pounds). They were very excited about my dedication to walking everyday and encouraged me to sign up to walk a 5k. They were all going to be running a half-marathon in March and they invited me to come with them to walk the 5k at the same event. I hemmed and hawed for a while, not really sure if I could walk that far at my current pace. But I knew I wanted a new challenge, so I eventually did sign up. I began to really train (using the Hal Higdon 5k training program), and I came up with the crazy idea to set a goal of walking the 5k in under 44 minutes. In my head, that was just a little under a 15-minute mile, which is about what I was averaging back in January. Of course, in reality, that’s a lot less than a 15-minute mile–more like 14:11!! (Math is not my strong point.) I kept that as my “stretch” goal, but I figured even if I did it under 45 minutes, I’d be happy. I eventually splurged on a Garmin GPS to help me calculate times (the math was making my head hurt!), and by early March, I had walked 5k three times, and the last time I did it in 43:54!! I was so excited!!

This post is getting really long, so I will move my “race report” to a new one.  But I will end this one with a picture of me back at my heaviest, and a picture now, so that you can know how far I’ve come.  That “10 or 15 pounds” I had wanted to lose back in November has now become 25 pounds, for a whopping total of over 75 pounds total lost since the picture on the left was taken!

Before and After

Yes, things are a lot different about me these days! 🙂

Thank you for reading!