Day 116 - 159 pounds!

What next?!!?!?!?!?!

Friday's final airing was wonderful......Diane, 57 years young, WON it all! Thanks for winning it for the "seniors in the contest", Diane!!! Kathleen came in 2nd and Taira in 3rd....all amazing, wonderful women and now friends! I'm so happy for them and for all of us, as we gave it our all and are now in a new healthier place!

Out of the "at home contestants", I came in 3rd, behind Becky and Cassie...man, I was only 1 percentage away from 2nd place....I'll attribute that to my dang broken foot, but still quite happy and proud of my 30 pound weight loss! But it's not over?!?!!? Many of us said that on Friday...

So what next!? How do we keep it going.....

After the show, a few of us went to have a celebration drink (and 1 person had a celebration dessert - not me, believe it or not - ha!) with JC, the cute, sweet head trainer throughout this competition.
It was great sitting around, celebrating our hard work and laughing and sharing....but the 1 theme that continued to come out, was THIS IS NOT OVER! All 5 of the contestants there all said the same thing, we have more weight to lose and we are not stopping!

I have thought a lot about this and wondered how can I make THIS TIME different from other times when I have lost weight and eventually gained it back....

Well, 1 painful way, that I have decided is that I will continue this BLOG, and post my weight every 2 weeks, just like the other weigh ins...that will help keep me in check....so if it goes down, YAY, and if it goes UP, then time to stop and figure it out........With all my friends doing the weight loss thing, I figured, I can get gets of advice when it goes up....you know, I'm not just writing this blog to GIVE advice, but rather to SHARE what works and what doesn't....to SHARE the ups and the downs.....

It was a very busy 1st week back from vacation....I was off Monday, but cancelled my vacation day on Tuesday and after about three 12hour work days, Friday finally came....My dear friend found out her boyfriend is in stage 4 cancer, so prayers for George please.....so instead of gym time this week, I found myself working late and then heading out to dinner with my friend while she was in town...I wouldn't have had it any other way, she is so dear and definitely didn't want her to go back to the hotel and be alone.....Friday was the show and celebration so by Saturday, I knew I needed to HIT IT HARD! But instead on Saturday, I headed back into the office and spent the entire day there...by 615p, I left the office and went to the grocery store and came home....thinking oh oh, this isn't the way to keep the weight off!

So this morning, I got up and got moving.....first Buster, my 10 year old overweight pup, and I took just a short trip down the street and back...that's as far as he can go....Next up was Charlotte, my "granddog" that would run until the "cows come home" whatever that means....you get where I'm going....

So I told Charlotte, okay, girl, make me sweat on this one....so off we went up the hill, a few houses and we started the run.....about half way into my usual 2 mile walk, I decided to mix it up a bit and push myself harder, especially knowing I hadn't done much this week, so I changed the course and off we went.....By the time we got home, we had done 4 miles.....and I figured out that I had run 2.9 of those 4 miles and walked the other 1.1 mile -WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Now that is what I'm talking about.......It feels GOOD!

Along the way today while walking, I met Becky, with her 2 sweet labs and for those that know me, it isn't hard to believe that we stopped and talked for probably 30 minutes.....all because we were letting our dogs say "hello" first - ha! Becky and I hit it off, and the conversation flowed from 1 subject to the next....she is an extremely smart, talented young woman, who, like so many others, is unemployed right now, but looking for work..in the meantime, she has gotten her 2 sweet labs certified for "touch therapy" at the Siteman Cancer Center....funny how 1 disappointment in life (getting laid off) can lead to 1 of the MOST REWARDING THINGS SHE HAS EVER DONE IN HER LIFE!

Made me think alot about this today....and I came to the conclusion....that life throws you a lot of curves, you all know what I'm talking about...those challenges that knock you down, scare you, take the wind out of your sail......what I truly understand now, is that it isn't the CHANGES in life that make you who you are, it is YOUR RESPONSE to those CHANGES in life that really shape your life!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Just for today, think about that the next time that life throws you a big old curve ball........how will you RESPOND?! How will your life be forever CHANGED!?! It's all up to you on how you want to RESPOND and CHANGE your life.................Thanks for taking this journey with me....hope you can continue......would love to hear from you...what is working, what isn't and what we should do next!?!

Have a great Sunday.....I already have and it's only half over!!